Side Order: Dinner Club

24 items to jazz up your dining experience

I turned 30 about six weeks before the pandemic hit, and unlike so many of my friends who were also celebrating big birthdays that year, I was lucky to have a chance to gather a bunch of my best friends in a room before we all would go into lockdown. I vowed to throw a party for every milestone birthday going forward, if not because I love to plan a party then because you just never know what the year ahead will bring. My birthday is rolling back around next week, and just as I was about to cancel my plans in light of what’s happening in LA right now, my friends adamantly assured me that we still need to have fun, even when things feel bleak. So, a (very small, low key) party I shall throw.

I had actually planned to send a dinner club themed Side Order last week, before the fires, because I was daydreaming about ringing in my 35th year, Alexa Chung style, aboard a Belmond train. Emphasis on “daydreaming”—it costs over $8,000 per person, per night, to stay on the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express. If you aren’t familiar, the hospitality group Belmond has turned a handful of trains around the world into roaming luxury hotels featuring cocktail cars, opulent suites, and nightly live music. Mark my words: Someday, somehow, I will make my way onto a Belmond train. (If anyone who works at Belmond is reading this, hear my prayer…)

The bar car on the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express.

In the meantime, I’m making due by frequenting restaurants with a jazzy, steakhouse-y, order-a-round-of-martinis vibe. I love a cozy, dimly-lit dining room, silver utensils on white table cloths, someone in a bowtie playing piano in the bar. The sundae at Tower Bar, the pasta platter at Horses, the spinach-artichoke dip at Houston’s—it’s all right up my alley. I may not be able to nab a coveted spot on the Belmond from Paris to Vienna, but I can drive myself up the 101 to Musso & Frank whenever I want.

Better yet, I can seek to inject a little of that dinner club spirit into my own dining room. Whether I’m throwing a party or having a friend over for a glass and a snack, all it takes is a few cocktail picks, some silver serving dishes, and the “Jazz in the Background” playlist on Spotify to do the trick.

The dining car.

Below, 24 items to luxury train-ify, or maybe just steakhouse-ify, your at-home dining experience: