Whether it’s a long, lazy dinner by the flicker of citronella candlelight or a post-work apéro on the terrace, summer entertaining is in full swing, and we’ve enlisted the help of the most stylish hosts we know to serve up their party tricks. Pour yourself a Campari soda and settle in—it’s Aperitivo Hour.
You don’t have to be too much of a Francophile to have heard that Paris has recently been spending some time on the dark side of the Celsius meter: the city, in all its mostly un-air-conditioned glory, is in the midst of a heatwave. Everyone is coping differently—some through fashion, some by fleeing. Others, like the writer (and Montmartre resident) Rebekah Peppler, are celebrating the brief breaks between the heat by way of an apéro at home.
“Recently, we had a few friends over to fête the end of a particularly intense canicule,” says Peppler, who has lived in the French capital for over a decade. “My partner and I host regularly in our apartment and it always gives me so much joy when a low-key apéro hour with friends turns into dinner turns into late-night champagne on the balcony.”
Peppler—who runs the food and travel newsletter Shortlisted, and has also authored three cookbooks, Apéritif, À Table and Le Sud—is no stranger to the art of French hosting. Heatwave or not, she usually lets the day’s morning market findings set the tone for the menu. For this evening’s gathering, she and her partner Laila Said settled on a simple cast of characters: a massive platter of aïoli surrounded by baby potatoes, snap peas, and cucumbers for dipping, tinned fish dressed up with a squeeze of lemon, a plate of soft-boiled eggs, a crusty baguette, and slivers of cheese. Everything is simple, fresh, good for a crowd—and, crucially, nothing requires turning on the oven.
Photo by Rebekah Peppler
Photo by Rebekah Peppler
Set the Scene
“My tabletop is a very heavy, very lovely oval slab of marble I got off Leboncoin; I love it because it’s beautiful and you can spill wine and wax and tomato juice all over it without any worries. I rarely choose to cover it with a linen (though if I were going to, it would be the nappe repas du bistrot tablecloth by Sarah Espeute)
I set the table earlier in the day, using Post-Its to note what is going on each serving dish. (This is a holdover from my food styling days and makes life so much easier when hosting). Then, depending on the number of people I need to fit around the table, I’ll opt for either standard-size dinner plates or smaller ones closer to salad or even dessert size—if we’re packed around the table, the smaller sizes help keep everyone a bit more comfortable, allow me to fit more food on the table, and encourage seconds, thirds, and fourths.”
