What’s a more special birthday celebration than enjoying great food with your favourite people? Don’t go the traditional restaurants route, host a private dinner birthday party!
If you want to have a private dinner party and hire a chef for your birthday but don’t know where to start, you’ve come to the right place!
I’m going to take you through the whole process of setting up your dream birthday dinner in this post. I’ll explain how to find a private chef, where to find decorations (or a decorator if you prefer), invites, drinks, menus, the works! By the end of this, you’ll feel the weight of your shoulders, so let’s get into it.
This post is all about your ultimate private dinner birthday!
Best private dinner birthday Party
Step 1: Get Organised
First and foremost, organisation. You can’t have your dream private dinner birthday without a little groundwork. So, grab yourself a pen and paper (or a device to type on, since this isn’t 2001) and write down what you need. Better yet, allow me to make it easier for you, download this printable for the perfect to-do list:
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Save time and make your life easier with my exact checklist specifically written for easily planning the best private dinner for your birthday!
Now lets begin!
Step 2: Find Your Venue
The most important thing for any party or event is a venue. Before planning anything at all, decide where you’re having your private dinner birthday. If you have the space, I’d suggest hosting in your home. This is always the safest option because you have the most control over any potential risks. Otherwise, the next best option is to hire a venue.
Given that a kitchen is essential, you’ll likely have to rent a home. My top tip for this is to use filters and read the description. If you plan to invite guests who are not staying at the property, DO NOT choose a home that doesn’t allow parties or events. Most hosts won’t have a problem with you bringing in a chef and decorating a bit if only people at the property (excluding the chef) are present for your private dinner birthday. I’d suggest having a look on Vrbo using the “Events allowed” filter selected.
If you aren’t using your home, pick a venue as early as possible!! I’d suggest a minimum of 6 weeks in advance, but the earlier the better with hiring.
Step 3: Choose Your Private Dinner Party Chef
Now, although you have a venue, there’s little you can do to move forward without a chef! If you know what kind of food you’re having, it will be easy for you to structure the rest of your event around it, because the food is obviously the main event in a private dinner birthday.
There are so many ways to hire a private chef for your private dinner party, but let me share with you my favourite tool – yhangry (get it, ‘ya hungry’ hahaha). This is hands down the easiest tool for you to fine a chef for your dinner.
There’s such a wide variety of chefs available here. From fine Italian dining to a nice casual American BBQ, or add in some culture and go for a Caribbean or Pan Asian, there’s so much to choose from!
yhangry chef Recommendations
The amount of choice is great of course, but if you’re as indecisive as me here are some suggestions:
- Chef Vincenzo N – I’ve personally hired him for a private dinner party, and let me tell you, his marinated K-BBQ chicken is literally to die for (if you hire him, please drop me a cheeky invite)! However, this chef has 18 menus to choose from, so you have plenty of options.
- Chef Gianni – If you’re in the mood for some great, authentic Italian food made with love, this one’s for you. All pasta is handmade and the fantastic menu options incorporate some great secret family recipes!
- Chef Dani – Do you love hearty, flavourful, classic American dishes? Well if that sounds like you, this chef offers 7 great menu’s inspired by a blend of American soul food and Caribbean cuisine. They also offer some great desserts and cocktails!
How to use yhangry
yhangry is so easy to use, so once you’ve found a chef for your private dinner birthday party here’s all you need to do:
- Head over to yhangy.com and click “Chefs” in the top left corner
- Set your location, event date and number of guests
- Browse chefs of course! At this point feel free to add any filter for cuisine, budget or any other available filters relevant to you
- Once you’ve picked a chef, browsed their menus and found the perfect fit, hit “Customise Menu” and go through the steps to book your chef. This will usually include providing the event postcode, date, time, dietary requirements etc.
- Some may allow instant booking, and some will require you to message the chef and have them approve your booking for your private dinner party. In the latter case, you won’t be charged until your booking is confirmed.
- Once details are finalised and everything looks good, you’ll be prompted to pay. At this point, you’ll want to hit “Pay Now”, enter your payment details and voila, you’ve confirmed your private chef!
Of course, if you’re feeling up to it, you can also do the cooking yourself! If not cooking then you can also order your favourite takeout and serve it dinner party style, there are no rules! Pick whatever option fits your budget, effort levels, or whatever tickles your fancy.
Congratulations, the hardest parts are now done! So let’s get started on some of the more fun bits for your private dinner birthday party. One of my personal favourites is drinks! Do you need cocktails, non-alcoholic drinks and mocktails, wine?
Step 4: Drinks, Drinks, Drinks
The choice is yours, but I’d suggest planning drinks that match your food.
For example, if you’re having a steak dinner you might like some red wine. Serving fish, maybe a white wine? Having American BBQ, try out some punches and cocktails. Wines and soft drinks aren’t too difficult to serve, run down to your local supermarket and get some wines or drinks that will pair with your food.
As for cocktails and punches for your private dinner birthday party, take a look at our 5 foolproof recipes!
{RELATED POST: 5 Amazing Alcoholic Punch Recipes Your Guests Will Love}
Step 5: Make Your Private Dinner Party Pretty!
Now all that’s left to do is decorate. Before buying any decorations or hiring any kind of decorator, you need to know the vibe you’re going for.
If you don’t know exactly the vibe you’re looking for, start with Pinterest. This is by far the most useful tool for visual inspo for an event, including your private dinner birthday party. Start by searching for ‘dinner table decor’ and see what comes up. From here click into pins, look at other related pins and start a board so more suggestions pop up on the board.
Get to know your theme as much as possible, particularly if you plan to decorate yourself. The more specific you can get on the things you want, the easier they’ll be to find. If you’re on the hunt for some great theme inspo, take a look at our 5 unique party theme ideas!
{RELATED POST: 5 Insanely Creative Birthday Party Themes for Adults You’ll Love (& How To Execute Them)}
Hiring tableware
If you are hiring a decorator for your private dinner birthday party, you can skip the step below – they’ll take care of this for you.
After deciding your theme, start looking for and purchasing your decor as early as possible. Do you need to hire or buy tableware? Is your chef bringing tableware? Do you have enough tableware at home? What about napkins? These are some of the first things you should consider. If you need to hire some tableware, here are some sites to consider:
Some other things to consider are:
- Table runners
- Name place holders
- Table numbers (if you have more than one)
- Candles
- Balloons
- Plants and succulents
- Confetti and rose petals
DIY Menu’s
I’d also recommend printing some menus and working these into your table decor. You can slide a menu into everyone’s napkin or place some around the table.
You can make your own menus from scratch, order some online or download an editable template and print them yourself.
Happy birthday, the day has come!
The day of any event can be a little hectic, particularly if you are handling most things yourself. This is again where organisation for your private dinner birthday party is key.
Write out a list of things you need to do on the day beforehand and organise it into time order so you know what takes priority or needs to be done first. Only you (or your decorator) know exactly what needs to be done, so go ahead and enjoy doing it!
If you’ve made it this far, let out a sigh of relief – this is your last step! The final thing you need to have fun!! You’ve made it through all the trials and tribulations that come with event planning. Now, be the best host you can possibly be. To do that, all you need to do is enjoy it. If you’re having fun, your guests will too!
That’s it, your dinner is now complete!
This post was all about your private dinner birthday.