Taking a dish to a dinner party?

[Primafacie]

DH and I are invited to a dinner party on Friday. The dinner is work-related and the host will be my colleague in two weeks' time when I start a new job, so not close friends. There will be 16 of us, and the invitation specifies that it will be a buffet/cold meats.

I was thinking I could take a dish for the buffet. I would take home-made gravadlax, as that requires no work at all from the hosts -it would be all cut and plated and ready to eat and delicious

DH thinks it's weird to take a dish to a dinner party. If you were the host, would you be pleased or offended? Any views on the etiquette?

We will be taking wine and flowers too, natch :)

MrsCantSayAnything I take enormous pleasure in prepping these things. I would just welcome a newcomer and their wonderful offering to the party as the kind gesture it is meant as.

Gavadlax takes days to cure, it's a lovely things to offer. But I agree OP now you've thought about it and have had the responses you have on here, asking/offering first is definitely the right thing to do.

Have a fun do

Are you going to the house of the OP on the 'cakes and sweets' thread? In which case, no, don't take the gravadlax!

Otherwise just ring and ask.

I would never take a dish to a dinner unless it was clear that we were expected to bring one. It is rude to me.

lime which thread is that?

Lime, link pleeeeeease!

I doubt it's the same party but need to make sure :o

Have you been asked to take anything? If not then don't maybe a bottle of wine and some flowers/chocolate, but if I was hosting a buffet then I would feel very weird about someone bringing a dish without being asked/previously offered.

Lime. I was thinking the same.

this one!

Tbh no, and I wouldn't ask either. It might come across as a bit odd. You've no sense of these people yet, bide your time!

I don't like people bringing food because if it's not nice, people will blame me.

Yeah, I wouldn't even ask. TBH this is a 'getting to know you' meal, and still relatively formal - you are NOT friends yet. Even asking is inappropriate in my opinion.

I would play safe in this instance and just take wine or after dinner chocs.

If it were friends however I wouldnt hesitate although I might call them first to make sure none of their guests would have a problem with whatever I have repared.

Primafacie, you can bring gravlax to my house anytime, I will happily receive it . In general though, I think it is best to just bring wine. DP and I have some close friends who will always offer to bring dessert when coming to dinner. TBH though, if we are entertaining, I like to be in charge of the food. Plus, I often do, for example, an Italian or Mexican themed meal. So gravlax wouldn't 'fit',as such. Very nice idea on your part, but probably 'safer' to stick with bringing wine.

I've had people turn up with two-day-old food (clearly off!) to ours, stuff from a packet (all ours is made from scratch!), etc. I can do without it tbh.

You only bring a dish when the invitation describes it as a pot luck, or asks people to bring something. Wine and flowers would be fine.

I wouldn't, because though a love gravadlax, you don't know these people very well and some people are squeamish about home-cured fish. I'm sure you are lovely and it is very delicious, but they don't know you well and you are going to be saying 'here is some raw fish I have marinaded for several days, please enjoy!' ... to me, that's the sort of thing where you really need to know whether or not someone is a fussy eater or not!

If I were bringing something a bit more home-made/personal than chocs or wine, I'd bake biscuits and pack them up nicely.

Thanks everyone for your views. The host declined my offer to bring food, so wine, flowers and chocs it is.

Thankfully we are invited to friends next week and I know they love gravadlax, so it won't go to waste.

For all those who said you like it too, please check out Simon Hopkinson's recipe on the BBC food website. It is really easy to make, it just needs a bit of forwad planning (as it needs to marinate for at least a couple of days).

I really, really wouldn't. It might be ok for a dinner party with friends/family but you say this is a work thing and you risk offending the hosts who may be v consciously regarding it as a real networking opportunity and wanting to impress. I speak as someone who has long experience of networking 'dinner parties' with colleagues at corporate level ...It would look odd, trust me. They aren't your friends or your family. Social etiquette for work and outside work socialising are totally different.

I'd ask first if I was a guest. if I was the host I wouldn't take offence but I'd think they thought I was a shit cook

I had a party once, more a drinks and nibbles thing where people expected to have eaten before they arrived. A Malaysian colleague turned up with two giant trays of satay (about 100 sticks) totally unprompted. It was lovely but nobody was hungry and it just made me feel really guilty it was all going to waste- I was giving away doggy bags at the end (she'd left by then). I was eating the stuff for days. Really wish she hadn't.

See, I posted on the other thread about people bringing dishes when they haven't asked, and got slated when I said that as a host, I didn't like it when people brought things. I should have posted here instead.

No, definitely not unless you have been asked to. Take a present for the host - bottle of wine, flowers, chocs etc.