A dinner presented by Jeudr3di, with menu by Casa Paco, in May, 2023, at Toronto's Brookfield Place. Somewhere between a family dinner, a networking event and a boutique dining experience, the curated dinner party has become a mainstay business in cities such as Toronto, New York and Paris.Deion Squires/Supplied
A small crowd gathered inside a west-end Toronto alleyway – a location they’d been summoned to via text blast just 24 hours prior. Along with the address, they learned the theme, drinks and menu of the dinner they’d be attending that night.
This time, on a balmy Sunday afternoon in late August, it happened to be bone marrow with brown butter hollandaise and fat slices of sourdough bread.
Among the regular guests at the invite-only dinner party by supper club Jeudr3di (pronounced “jeu-dre-dee”) is 27-year-old Erika Lindberg.
“You’re here for four or five hours and you’re about to meet some of the most amazing, interesting people,” she told me over the bebop of a live jazz band.
Somewhere between a family dinner, a networking event and a boutique dining experience, the curated dinner party has evolved from a fun get-together, to a staple pandemic pastime and now, a mainstay business in cities such as Toronto, New York and Paris. Though the pandemic dinner parties appear to have been born out of a need for more selective social circles in the throes of COVID-19, these gatherings have thrived even as lockdowns waned, satisfying a lingering urge for curated friendships on one end, and a niche business opportunity on the other.
Lindberg has been attending Jeudr3di’s formal suppers – a ticketed event with assigned seating – as well as their casual outdoor spin-off – Secret Sunday Service – since they launched in 2022. Like many guests, she often arrives alone and unbothered.
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Jeudr3di hosts formal suppers and a casual outdoor spin-off event.Supplied
“You can go to a restaurant and it’s super out of pocket to talk to the table beside you. But the whole setup of something like this,” Lindberg said while she motioned to an edge of the main table where a group of twenty and thirtysomethings in designer sunglasses play a card game and sip sparkling spring water. ”It’s precreated to feel comfortable enough to sit alone or go sit with people, meet people.”
The invite-only dining experience – and the worst-kept secret among Toronto’s creative types – is the brainchild of 37-year-old art curator Alexandra Francis and her business partner Brutalé. Jeudr3di’s last event of the summer saw roughly 50 friends and strangers gather around long, rustic tables set with checkered linens, chess boards and bottles of natural wines – which you can snag for roughly $80 a pop – to break (artisanal) bread and make new connections in a curated setting.
Jeudr3di’s last event of the summer saw roughly 50 friends and strangers gather.Supplied
“The best way to describe it is very much like a curated family dinner,” said Francis. She charges upward of $150 for a ticket to one of their private formal dinners, though their summer spinoff, Secret Sunday Service, offers a more casual alternative open to anyone in the know and where you pay by the plate for good, hearty, millennial-friendly priced food.
“It’s very sensory … we have a DJ for the music, chef, wine pairings, everything to touch and feel,” she said.
When I met Francis at the August event, she resembled a sort of bohemian Martha Stewart. Tall and tan, her long, untamed mane of curly dark hair swayed in sync with her maxi skirt as she ran around greeting guests and checking on food.
Growing up in a big, boisterous family, Francis wanted to recreate the same sights, tastes and sounds of a noisy dinner with extended family. Except, with her own circle of friends – a who’s who of Toronto’s creator economy. She also grasped the business potential.
Jeudr3di emerged as a “very natural, authentic kind of birth” from a potluck with friends to their first formal dinner, which saw 55 of Francis’s closest friends and colleagues eating chef-cooked meals in a downtown living room.
“The energy in the room was so real and everyone was really connecting,” said Francis, who immediately searched for a bigger space. She found it in an abandoned warehouse in Roncesvalles. And later: a hidden hotel in an alleyway of Toronto’s Annex neighbourhood, a giant tent in a friend’s loft and a vintage clothing store.
As Jeudr3di’s popularity grew, Francis tapped into a wider network of connections in the restaurant, art and marketing industries, leveraging the event as a collaborative business opportunity to showcase talent and products. One of their biggest early hits was a Salvador Dali-inspired dinner with a menu developed by the lead chefs of Toronto’s Casa Paco in Little Italy and a venue collaboration with the Annex Hotel.
But they also provide a meeting space for people to make new connections. Francis says those who attend are excited for the possibility of the kind of “meet-cutes” they see in movies. Often, the meet-cute is of the platonic sort, or a friendship that blooms into a business relationship.
If Jeudr3di is like dinner with your trendy cousins, SeeYouSoon, which serves pop-up family suppers with a fine-dining twist across Canada and beyond, is like having dinner with your wealthy uncles.
Since 2023, Kevin Le, Michael Ovejas and Keith Siu – all graduates of the fine-dining industry – have played host to dozens of private dinner pop-up events in Toronto, Vancouver, New York and Paris.
Their goal is to create a “multisensory dining experience” with rotating experimental menus paired with unique space settings. Think crispy Japanese kohlrabi on an industrial rooftop, homemade milk buns with cultured herb butter on a farm in Bowen Island, B.C., or Hong Kong toast with coconut yema jam and cream in a neon-lit record shop and bar in Toronto.
When leaving one of their dinners, Le said he wanted people to feel “happy and satisfied” but “not necessarily full.”
It’s important to state the obvious here: The events cater to a certain demographic in the creator ecosystem. Not everyone will feel as blissfully at ease and unbothered walking into a room of swanky strangers.
After multiple attempts to learn about the decision-making process behind the guest list, I received only vague answers from hosts (one can suspect that your online presence is a factor since registration forms ask for your Instagram handle).
But as much as my initial impulse may have been to dismiss the event as an overpriced gimmick to feed content-hungry creators, I found myself pleasantly surprised. I saw few people scrolling on their phones throughout the night and the board games that looked to be strictly decorative at first hardly sat idle. I witnessed strangers welcomed into well-established friend groups and spend the evening playing rummy.
While I didn’t make new lifelong friends that night – introducing myself as a reporter may have had a hand to play – I did feel like my “meet-cute” could arrive at any moment, though my Uber came sooner.