How to Dine in Style

First published in 1920, How to Dine in Style opens a window onto the golden age of elegant dining, where the basic function of ingesting nourishment was elevated to a high social art, attended by intricate details and elaborate ritual.

Starched linens, candles, white gloves, aperitifs, ball suppers, French menus, and garden-parties—this is the world of the decadent classes who came to prominence in the post-war period. Published in an age where achieving a reputation for throwing recherché dinner parties was a route to international celebrity, this is a book about food as performance art.

In it, we catch tantalising glimpses of astonishing excess, such as the craze for eccentric venues for dinner parties, including the roof of a Chicago home (for amateur mountaineers), a lion's den, and a gondola in the Savoy.

An engaging blend of practical advice and a catalogue of eccentricity, this book contains everything you need to know, from the fine art of composing a menu to the practicalities of the correct order and temperatures for serving wines.