This investigative report into underground dinner parties in New York City is very high on the unintentional comedy scale:
That hostess, Naama Shafi, writes about food but is not a chef. Leitner found her through a website, which connects amateur foodies and professional chefs in 20 different countries with people who want unique dining experiences.
Clandestine dinner parties like the one Leitner attended have become more common in New York City. And insiders told Leitner they are completely unregulated. […]
To stay under the radar, Patlazhan changes the location every time and keeps the guest list exclusive through a members-only website.
Food service is one of those weird areas where the exact same thing (cooking food for other people) is done on both a commercial and non-commercial basis, except with totally different regulatory schemes. The moral of the story here should almost certainly be that we’re overregulating commercial food production, not that we need to clamp down on underground dinner parties.
