Nine Friends, One Hob: Hosting Supper in a Flat With Nowhere to Sit

The first supper I hosted in my own flat was for seven people, in a one-bed in Walthamstow, using two rings, one oven shelf and a desk that folds into the wall. There was no dishwasher. There was no table big enough. Someone sat on a laundry basket with a cushion on it and said it was the best meal of their year, and I have chosen to believe them ever since.

Cooking for people in a small London kitchen is not a compromise version of a dinner party. It's its own thing, with its own rules, and once you know them it stops being terrifying.

The guest list is a kitchen measurement

Before you plan a menu, count your burners. Two rings, an oven and a grill will feed six comfortably, eight if the oven does most of the work, and ten only if you abandon the idea of courses altogether and put everything on the counter at once.

My rule: one guest for every place someone can genuinely sit, plus two on soft furnishings, plus the neighbour who always turns up. Beyond that you are not hosting dinner, you are running an event, and events need chairs and a plan.

The one-hob, three-course template

The entire trick is that nothing is cooked at the last minute. Not one thing.

Starter: something cold, made in advance, eaten with fingers or bread. A bowl of whipped feta with honey and toasted seeds and a stack of flatbreads. Radishes, good butter, a dish of olives. Potted shrimp with toast, grilled in batches earlier and kept warm in a tea towel. The starter's job is to buy you twenty minutes and get a drink into people.

Main: one tray or one pot, cooked in the morning and reheated. Harissa chicken thighs with butter beans and lemon, roasted in a big tray. A slow pot of dal with a yoghurt and mint swirl. Sausages and lentils baked with tomatoes. Whatever you choose, the carbs come from a kettle or a bag — couscous, a loaf, a box of salad — so the hob stays free for the gravy.

Pudding: made on Friday. Chocolate pots, poached quinces with yoghurt, a tart carried home from a market. Absolutely nothing that needs oven space at nine in the evening, because by then the oven is full of plates and the plates are still warm from the main.

A working timetable, if it helps: guests at seven, starter down at half seven, main at quarter past eight, pudding at quarter past nine, kitchen shut at ten. Shutting the kitchen is a real step. Turn the light off. If you don't, you'll be wiping surfaces while everyone else is having fun, and you'll be up until one.

Chairs, plates and the borrowing economy

Ask the neighbours a week ahead. Two folding chairs from the flat above, a stool from the one below, the kitchen chairs, the bed, a crate with a cushion on it. Most people in London flats have exactly this arrangement and are delighted to be asked, partly because they'll be borrowing something off you in February.

Mismatched plates are not a failure of taste, they're a feature. Nobody has ever sat down at a table of borrowed crockery and thought less of the cook. Glasses are the one thing worth simply requesting: add a line to the message that says bring a bottle and, if you have one, a glass you like.

The BYO container question

Somewhere in every friendship group there's a person who arrives with an empty tub. Don't be that person. Wait to be offered leftovers; if you're offered, take a modest amount and bring the container back clean and, ideally, filled with something of your own.

If you're the guest bringing a dish, bring the serving spoon that goes with it, and don't expect the host's oven. A room-temperature thing that can sit on the windowsill for an hour is the most welcome gift in a small kitchen. A thing that needs twenty minutes at 200C is a hostage situation.

As a host, if you're sending food home, keep a stash of takeaway containers under the sink. They cost almost nothing, and they mean you don't have to remember which friend has your good dish.

The washing-up truce

No dishwasher means somebody has to stand at the sink, and pretending otherwise makes everyone awkward. Two bowls — one hot and soapy, one for rinsing — and a strict order: glasses, plates, cutlery, serving dishes, pans. Pans get soaked with hot water the moment they come off the heat, before dinner, not after.

If guests want to wash up, let them. Show them where things live and get out of the way. If nobody offers, ask two people directly and specifically, because a general cry of 'shall we do these' is a question nobody hears.

The alternative, honestly, is a rinse and a stack. Everything gets a quick hot rinse, goes into a washing-up bowl or a basket, and becomes tomorrow morning's problem. It is not a moral failing.

Small things that save evenings

• Open the window and run the extractor before you sear anything. Cooking smells are lovely for an hour and a personality for three days.
• Test the smoke alarm situation in advance. If it lives outside the bathroom and hates roasting, you need to know that before your guests do.
• Warn the downstairs neighbours if there'll be chair-dragging after ten.
• Keep a folded bag for rubbish near the door and empty it before people arrive, not during.
• Chill the drinks in a bucket or the sink with ice. The fridge has no room and you know it.

Priya, who hosts in a one-bed in Bow, says she stopped apologising years ago and the evenings improved immediately. Tom bought a folding table for £30 and describes it as the best money he's spent on his flat. And Sofia, who has hosted six people on the floor of a studio in Peckham, points out that in four years of these dinners, not a single guest has ever mentioned the seating.

What people remember is that you asked them, that the food was hot, and that the evening had no rush in it. The table is optional. The plan isn't.