How to Turn a Dinner Party Into an Actual Party

A dinner party has one vibe. A house party has another. How do you get both in one night? A few vibemasters reveal their tricks.

The plates are pretty much empty. The Brussels sprouts, the pork loin: all long gone. One or two people eye what remains of dessert, but everybody else is disinterested. When everybody starts lazily swirling the wine in their glasses, and somebody mutters something about Monday morning, you know for sure there's no going back—this dinner party is over.

Hey, you tried. People eat, people drink, people get sleepy and want to go home. That's human nature. But the energy zap that happens at the end of a dinner party isn't inevitable. You can set the furniture, the lighting, and the music in a way that turns your dinner party into an loud, floor-shaking, hard-drinking cocktail party. Just take these tips from these general mangers at Union Square Hospitality Group—they basically throw a party every night.

They're so in the zone.

Photo by Palmieri Tony
Create a zone (or three)

At the Southern bar Porchlight, managing partner Mark Maynard-Parisi makes sure there are "different zones for people who are at different energy levels." If you're having any more than six people at your party, he says, you need to do the same thing. "You need space for people to splinter off. Two zones. Three is even better," he says. The kitchen might be a high-energy zone ("standing is great for story-telling," Mark notes), the living room might be a chill, relaxing zone, and wherever you're serving food—in the dining room, at a table in the corner—might be somewhere in-between.

Punch Bowl In Full Effect

For a lively vibe right from the start, there's really only one drink option: The punch bowl. "When we have dinner parties, the punch is always in full effect," says Marta's Max Quattrone. "It breaks the ice. And it doesn’t have to be too boozy. It can be something light and fresh."

This is how you know you got the music and lighting right.

Photo by Eric Weiss
Upbeat music to start

"Music is a metronome," says Max. "It sets the pace for how people act." He recommends starting with something on the slower side of upbeat (Ray Charles is his go-to) and slowly ramping it up from there. Untitled's Julia Travis has her own go-to tracks: the Buddha-Bar Pandora station. "It maintains a nice consistent energy but never detracts from people talking," she says.

lower the lights

"Lighting is similar to music, but almost the inverse," Max says. "You’re starting out higher early in the evening, and as the night progresses, lights get lower." Mark agrees: "It can almost never be too dark," he says. Candles are the preferred lighting (as long as they're not scented). But just as important as the candles you light are the ones you blow out. "When we sit down, we turn off most of the kitchen lights next to the dining room," Mark says. "It says: the cooking is done, time to enjoy time with friends."

Focus on the middle

That slow and steady energy drop that happens when you have eight, ten, twelve people around a table? It doesn't happen, Julia says, when you seat people around a round table and put share plates in the middle. "That encourages people to reach into the center together," she says. She recommends foods that have the vibrancy and color you want your party to have, something like a falafel platter with lots of breads, dips, pickles and vegetables. "It's fun to play with your food a little bit."

Start Shaking

Dinner's done. Now's the time to act fast. First tip: Don't serve dessert right away, and definitely don't serve it at the table. (You set up a dessert zone, didn't you?) Your goal is to get people up from the table, and the best way to do that, Mark says, is to start shaking cocktails. "To me, the best sound on Earth is shaking drinks. There have absolutely been times that it's after dinner and I've been like, okay, now what do I do? What I've started doing is cocktails. It's just this amazing thing. All of the sudden, people are like, 'what are you making over there?'" As you start shaking, switch the music to something with more energy (less soul, more hip hop).

This is real party now; Ray Charles has no sway here anymore.