Eating with friends promotes connection and happiness, so it’s no surprise intimate supper clubs are gaining momentum. Carly Gibbs pulls up a chair to learn how they work with the Bay of Plenty’s ‘feast queen’, Rose Kennedy. When self-described feast queen Rose Kennedy married her husband Matt in March, they officially became “Mr and Mrs Dining Table”.
Friends bestowed the title because the Tauranga woman runs supper clubs in private homes throughout the Bay of Plenty, Waikato, and sometimes the wider North Island. She met Matt, her chief taste tester, when they were teens working at KFC. Supper clubs have become a popular alternative to the restaurant scene, offering a more familial night out.
More commonly known by her Instagram handle @rosesdiningtable , the 32-year-old will come into your home to cook for you and your guests, supply tableware and dim lighting, and wash the dishes, often with teammates. If partygoers wish to kick on, glassware is collected the next morning. Her supper clubs aren’t just a regular dinner party but a vibrant, soulful, wildly delicious feast set on one of her storybook-style maximalist tablescapes with the perfect amount of “kook”.
Think flowers by Pāpāmoa’s Aster & Bloom: roses, fragrant daffodils, gerberas and orchids. Tulle bows, pearls, candles shaped like fruit, sculptures made from oranges and cabbages, eclectic mismatched plates from op shops, hand-blown glassware, and ceramic chequered-pattern cutlery; the setti.