Chefs Share Their Favorite Ways to Upgrade Their Dinner Parties — And They’re So Easy to Do

Today, some of the most magical dining experiences happen tableside. A cart is wheeled to your table with a full T-bone steak — it’s expertly sliced, placed on your plate, and finished with jus. Bananas are flambéed before your eyes, the smell of rum and brown butter filling the room. Even the simplest motions — pasta getting finished with a sprinkling of Parmigiano Reggiano or black pepper from an extra-large pepper mill — can elevate a dish.

“2025 restaurant trends emphasize creating spaces designed for entertaining, and transforming dining rooms into atmospheric, engaging environments where dinner becomes a performance that captivates everyone at the table,” says Kris Padalino, executive chef of Brennan’s in New Orleans. “The theatrical aspect turns an ordinary dinner into a memorable experience that guests will talk about long after they leave.”

Tableside dining might feel like something exclusive to high-end restaurants, but in reality, many of these techniques and flairs can be easily replicated at home. At the 42nd annual Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, chef and television host Tyler Florence will be teaching attendees how to upgrade dinner parties with the magic of tableside service. 

“I always try to save a little bit of what I call the ‘razzle dazzle’ for when the guests arrive,” he says. From wow-worthy dish preparations to simple hacks, here are seven ways to incorporate restaurant-style tableside dining into your next dinner party.

Have large plateware on hand

If you’re preparing food for a crowd, it’s always best to have a handful of reliable serving platters and bowls. Use them to present your meal family style, or to complete dishes in front of your guests. If you’re going to invest in one, jumbo-sized item, Florence recommends getting a big wooden bowl. 

“Having a really good oversized wooden bowl is a great piece of equipment to have in the kitchen. You can leave it on the counter and fill it with lemons or apples, but when you need a presentation bowl for eight to 12 people, you’ve got one on hand.” Florence uses his wooden bowl to toss large-format salads, placing it atop a damp towel to prevent it from sliding around.

For outdoor parties, make the meat the main event

At barbecues and outdoor parties, Florence will often grill a large cut of meat like beef tenderloin, then slice it in front of his guests. “I love serving beef tenderloin because you can utilize 100% of it and it’s a showstopper piece,” he says. “Then slicing it into medallions or two-inch slices for everyone to grab a piece, family style, is really fun.”

For whole fish, de-bone in advance

A whole grilled or baked fish is another large-format protein that’s bound to impress your guests. At Carne Mare in New York City, servers crack open and fillet a salt-baked seabass in front of guests. But rather than training the servers on how to debone a fish at the table, 2000 F&W Best New Chef Andrew Carmellini will scale the fish, and remove its spine and pinbones in advance. “We then put the two fillets back together again [with the spine] and some lemons, lemon leaves, thyme, and rosemary, then bake it in a platter,” he says. “It still cooks nicely because you’re cooking it against the bones.” When the server arrives to the table, they open the sea bass and plate the fillet over fresh citrus. 

You can easily replicate this process by asking your fishmonger to debone and scale your fish — but to not discard the spine bone and head. Then when you’re prepping the fish, you can place one fillet in your baking pan, followed by the spine and head, and then top it with the second fillet so the bone runs down the middle and it looks like a fish, except it’s already cut. With this technique, you can still dazzle your guests by plating a whole fish, without the pressure of removing the tiny bones. 

If you have a firepit, use it

You can always grill, but cooking over a fire pit will bring the same kind of drama indicative of tableside dining. Top your fire pit with a grate to grill meats and vegetables, and if you want to go all out, Carmellini suggests making paella. 

“If I’m entertaining at my house, we’ll cook a big paella over a roaring fire,” he says. “No matter what I do — even if I put rosé and sherry cocktails on the other side of the yard — all [the guests] care about is standing around the fire and cooking paella with you.” Make the paella in a large, cast-iron enameled pan or, for the ultimate flex, a traditional paella pan.

Learn how to flambé (safely)

“Fire is always a showstopper,” says Carmellini. Some of the most impressive, traditional tableside dishes, like bananas foster and steak Diane, are flambéed, but intentionally igniting an open flame inside your home can be intimidating and, frankly, scary. 

If you’re making a dish like cherries jubilee — ice cream topped with cherries that have been flambéed in brandy — there’s no need for your party to crowd around a hot burner. Instead, bring the cooked cherries directly to the table to flambée, then carefully spoon it over each guest’s bowl of ice cream. “You just have to make sure you heat the alcohol first,” says Carmellini, who makes cherries jubilee at his eponymous restaurant, Cafe Carmellini. He stresses the importance of using a rum with a high-ABV, or else the alcohol will not catch fire. “And watch out for people’s hair.”

When in doubt, make a Caesar salad

“Caesar salad is the ideal starter dish for home cooks to master tableside dining,” says Padalino. The Caesar salad at Brennan’s in New Orleans is one of the restaurant’s most iconic tableside experiences, second only to the bananas foster. “The beauty of the Caesar salad is it requires virtually no special equipment beyond what most cooks already own.”

You can make the dressing by hand in a bowl using a whisk or two large spoons, or pre-make it in a blender. Add the lettuce, croutons, Parmesan, and anchovies, and “toss with a dramatic flair,” Padalino says. At Miller & Lux, Florence’s San Francisco restaurant, servers are instructed to “stack it high and watch it fly.”

“The larger pieces of lettuce and those act as a base, and then stack the leaves up like a deck of cards from big to small,” says Florence. “Then with one scoop on the bottom and the other holding the stack in place, you lift [the lettuce] up, and all of it gets dropped [on the plate] in a beautiful stack.”

Finish your dish at the table

When it comes to tableside dining, some of the smallest touches make the biggest impact. “It’s just fun to finish a dish in front of [your guests],” says Florence. “Grating cheese, drizzling something with olive oil, or tossing a salad with a vinaigrette made from scratch — those things create a magical space.”