Rehearsal dinners and the night you tell everyone

Wedding rehearsals are one of the occasions we are asked for most. We seat up to 32 at the table with 10 more at the bar, take 50 to 55 standing, and print the menus with both names across the top.

The night before

A rehearsal dinner has a job to do: get two families into one room and make them comfortable before the day that matters. A long table with food going round the middle does that faster than a plated menu where everyone eats in silence.

We usually run shared starters and an entrée each. The kitchen sends tandoor plates out while people are still finding their seats, which takes the pressure off the first twenty minutes — generally the twenty minutes that decide how the evening goes.

Friday and Saturday evenings go first. If the wedding is on a Saturday, send us the rehearsal date as early as you have it, because the night before a wedding is the one date nobody can move.

Engagement dinners

For an engagement the room is small enough to feel like yours without a buyout: candlelight, silent films, and a bar that will build whatever the toast calls for. If you do want the whole place, that is available.

Parties that would rather mingle than sit go standing, with hors d’oeuvres passed through the room. That format takes 50 to 55, which covers most engagement parties that began life as a dinner for twenty.

The bar seats ten and it is the natural place to open: cocktails while the room fills and the late arrivals find parking, then everyone moves to the table once the kitchen is ready.

Feeding two families

Mixed tables are the norm here. The vegetarian side of the menu is long, our chicken and lamb are halal, and the menu also includes pork, so the kitchen is not fully halal — tell us who is eating what and we’ll build the order around it. The allergy menu lists every dish and what it carries.

The seated menu most rehearsal dinners start from: Everything on it can be swapped, and the allergy menu lists what every dish carries.

The Seated Dinner

Shared starters, then one plated entrée each

To start, shared

• Chilli Cheese Toast
• Vegetable Samosas
• Munkey Chicken Tikka
• Lamb Seekh Kabab

Entrée, one each — plated, with rice & naan

• Garden Club Vegetable Korma
• ‘Portu-Goan’ Pork Vindaloo
• Butter Chicken Tikka Masala
• Malabar-Coast Shrimp Ruby
• Kashmiri Saffron Lamb

Sides, shared

• Mum’s Lemon Daal
• Roasted ‘Gobi’ Cauliflower
• Gunpowder Potatoes

Dessert, one each

• Gajar Halwa à la Mode
• Dark Chocolate Cricket Ball

Add on

• One signature cocktail, beer or glass of wine per guest

Pricing on request — tell us about your event.

Tell us about your night

Send us the date, the two names, and how many are coming.