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.
When you go for dinner at Natasha Pickowicz’s house, you will be surprised. There’s no strict start time, no theme, no pre-determined menu; the guest list is a mystery, sometimes even to the host. “I like the kind of loose, easy gatherings where people come and go, bring extra guests with them, eat on the ground, eat standing up… my friends know they’re always welcome to my home for a meal, and they never know what they’re going to get,” she says. “Sometimes, it’s just wine, cheese, and bread.”
In the hands of Pickowicz—a four-time James Beard finalist, a cookbook author, and former head pastry chef at New York hotspots Altro Paradiso and Flora Bar—we assume that even wine and cheese and bread ends up being fairly spectacular. So when inspiration struck at her local greenmarket via a bounty of produce and a vague idea to grill something, it only stands to reason that the end result later that day would impress: an elaborate menu featuring a full cast of summertime vegetables and not one, but two tables overflowing with food.
The party started with late afternoon sun streaming into the cozy backyard, and ran right through the night. “I love the transition that happens at dusk and twilight, when I plug the fairy lights in and light the citronella incense, and there’s a moment of pitch black darkness outside, everyone illuminated by candlelight,” says Pickowicz. With a wandering timeline, an eclectic uniform for her table, and a menu designed to be DIY-ed, she has dinner party improv down to an art—and if you ask her, the unplanned nights are the best ones, anyway: “Dinners rarely end up turning out how I initially imagined them, and I prefer it that way.”
Photography by Meghan Marin
Set the Scene
“My approach is very mix and match, playing with texture and pattern as much as possible. To keep things from looking too hectic, I’ll try to keep things within a few colors; here, rich blues, pink, and white, with little pops of red and yellow. Plaid, stripes, and florals go with everything this way. For this evening, I kept the background plain with a linen tablecloth from Quince, and used my mom’s vintage blue Chinese tablecloth on a circular side table for the overflow. Ultimately, all I want is for the food to shine and look great.”