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By Root 1167 0

of the Restaurant, Rebecca Spang described what would become the most notorious private banquet in eighteenth-century Paris, held by an affluent eccentric named Balthazar Grimod de la Reynière. The dinner was exclusive to a select number of distinguished guests, who were unsuspecting of the evening’s full extent; at his dimly lit chateau, they made their way to the dining room through a long, sinewy hallway and a series of chambers. A black-draped coffin placed atop the dining table set the night’s macabre tone. At the entrance, “heralds dressed in Roman robes examined the guests’ invitations,” and after further scrutiny, a pass code, and admittance, in the final stage of initiation, hired hands dressed as choirboys perfumed the guests with incense.

Of course, details of the dinner that Grimod held were known only by attendees and passed on by word of mouth. However, the gossip must have spread among the Paris elite, and Grimod basked in the mystery that he had created.

Similar to this, today’s supper clubs thrive on the limited publicity creating a sense of mystery and legend surrounding their activities. Word of mouth is very much the prevailing—and preferred—modus operandi. The Whisk and Ladle owns a website under its name, but it’s sparse, and hardly an exact detail is mentioned—no names, locations, or exact dates. Visitors can simply register to receive e-mails from the club, whenever they are sent out. That places like Whisk and Ladle have a high stake in their secrecy comes with good reason, too: They’re completely illegal. No food and health department ever checks their kitchen premises or their operation standards. But most important, no business plan was formalized to accept the customers’ payments. Therefore, supper clubs usually describe their fixed dinner prices as “contributions”—a gratuitous offering, a willing exchange, rather than a strict payment. These are details that, like the dinner’s location, are told to diners only in follow-up e-mails once their RSVP has been accepted.

You could consider all this and reach the conclusion that the people who start supper clubs want to make money, doing so by making food, but are too lazy to get a proper license and commercial space, and prefer to do things under the table in a manner that’s more comfortable, not to mention financially beneficial to them. But money is beside the point for most of the people I’ve met who run supper clubs—and I’ve met at least a dozen of them by now. Many of them have no intention of ever opening or working in a real restaurant, instead aiming to create an intimate, alternate dining environment and do what they love to do—cook, free of the burdens of public scrutiny and financial incentives. And they have their niches, as well: one supper club in New York is based around the premise of locally harvested, seasonal foods; another hosts dinners with a theme attached to each one, like the Roaring Twenties. A Razor, A Shiny Knife is a supper club based around the premise of instructional cooking demos, and guests are invited to get a hands-on education in the dishes that are served for the night. There are also supper clubs with little or no theme other than that no one at the table need any preexisting social connections; they’re held in a setting resembling a home dinner party. In the fall of 2008, a two-night, hundred-guest dinner event was orchestrated among five supper clubs called Undergrounds Unite. The event was elaborate, large, and some say overpriced, at $100 a plate. But it was a unique milestone in the short history of the supper club trend. Unlike most big foodie events, however, it was kept very much out of the public eye, known to only those who attended it. None of it was spilled to the press.

You can see how some of today’s supper club conspirators have that same glimmer of mischief that Grimod must have had. I can imagine that today’s supper club hosts and hostesses must share some secretive delight in withholding details about a dinner until shortly before it is held, or in being choosy about who gets a seat.