Gala Dinner Menu...?

[letmehelp]

My mum has a "big" birthday next week

I'm having the family to me to do her a birthday dinner and I thought it might be fun and make it a bit special to make it a formal gala dinner.

I'm trying to put a menu together based around what mum actually likes to eat, but am a bit confused about extra courses and what goes where.

If it was (say) a five course dinner, what would the courses typically be?

If there was a fish course and a sorbet where do they sit?

Do you mean a sorbet as a palate cleanser? Or as an additional dessert? As a palate cleanser it comes between courses - you can have one between every course if you really want!

I would do
Starter
Fish
Meat
Sorbet
Dessert
(Cheese)

You could also put a sorbet between the fish and the meat, or have an amuse-buche type sorbet at the start before the starter. If you are having cheese, then the British approach is cheese last, the French way is to do cheese and then dessert. You don't have to have it of course, or it could just be laid out somewhere else for people to help themselves to.

A useful trick in this sort of situation is to look up the menu of a nice restaurant, and follow their order (although obviously not their dishes!). So on Page 7 here you can see the Dorchester's evening meal dining options.

Hope that helps.

That's fantastic thanks - I did have a look at some restaurant menus, but ended up very confused.

I naively thought this would be the sort of thing where Debretts would have every solution you could ever imagine, but I think it's one of the first times they've failed...

Hope your party goes well! It's a lovely idea.

Thank you Grace, as you sound very well informed, what would you suggest I state as the dress code. I'm thinking a bit of effort's required, but don't want anyone to have to shop specially etc. I guess I mean no jeans and maybe ties required. Does that have a name?

Is that 'formal attire' or 'evening wear' rather than 'black tie'?

I think I'd interpret "evening wear" or "formal" as still being floor length dresses for women... I'd be more inclined to go for lounge suits and cocktail dresses I think. Debretts comes up trumps for this one! You could also say smart casual, but I think that is more confusing/difficult for women.

you could say dress to impress, then each can interpret as they wish?