Why Supper Clubs Are Thriving – Insights from Alexander Smalls

Supper clubs have always been about more than food. They are about connection, conversation and the sense of belonging that lingers long after the last plate is cleared.  

Around the world today, they thrive because they offer something restaurants often cannot: intimacy, storytelling and community. 

Few people understand this better than Alexander Smalls. As a chef, author and cultural voice, he has spent his life showing how food can carry history and identity while bringing people together. 

In this conversation, Alexander shares why supper clubs continue to matter, the lessons they hold and what their future might look like.

Q1: Why do you think supper clubs have captured people’s imagination right now?

Because supper clubs are not about money or status. They are about a sense of community. When someone invites you to a supper club, they are not handing you a bill at the end of the night, they are opening their home, their life, their battles and wins. 

That is why people lean in when they hear the words “supper club.” It promises intimacy, a chance to be part of something unrepeatable. In a world where everything is monetised, where belonging has become something, you can swipe your card for, a supper club feels like the last true act of generosity. 

But it is also more than that. Supper clubs are part of a larger movement we’ve seen with private restaurants and members-only clubs: a search for spaces that are curated, qualified and protective. In uncertain times, when the public square often feels volatile or divided, people crave places where they can feel safe to speak openly, share experiences and connect with others who see the world in similar ways. Supper clubs can offer just that: a protected circle where ideas and stories can breathe without fear of judgment. 

You are not consuming an experience; you are part of it. And I think people are hungry for that kind of authenticity. 

Q2: What do you feel a supper club offers that a restaurant never can?

Restaurants are built on expectation. People walk in and they want what they already know and the chef has to give it to them. But at a supper club, there are no scripts to follow.  

Anything can happen. A guest might slip behind the piano and suddenly the room becomes a chapel. Someone might stand to read a poem or begin to dance and the entire evening shifts. That is the beauty of it.  

Supper clubs are not about consistency, they are about surprise. They are about the alchemy of bringing people together and watching what unfolds. You do not come for what you already know, you come for what you cannot predict. And that makes each gathering precious, because it can never be repeated in exactly the same way. 

Q3: How do you approach creating the atmosphere for one of your gatherings? 

I don’t think of it as creating atmosphere. I think of it as opening a door. My home is not designed, it is lived in. Every painting on the wall, every book piled on a table, every photograph on the fridge tells a story of where I’ve been, who I’ve known, what I’ve loved.  

When people walk in, they are stepping into decades of life, into a room that remembers. And that memory does half the work for me. It sets the tone before I have even plated a dish. Sometimes I weave in a theme, but the truth is, the atmosphere is already there, waiting. My role is simply to invite people into it and to let the room do what it does best: tell its own story. 

Q4: What role does heritage play when you bring people together at the table?

Heritage is not something I add to the table, it is the table itself. For many communities, food has always been more than food. It has been survival, currency and memory.  

Our ancestors were denied the right to read and write, so they passed their stories through recipes, through the way they used spices, through dishes that carried their names forward when nothing else could. That spirit still lives in supper clubs today. 

They are not just about food, they are about holding on to who we are and sharing it with others. In America, where the political climate feels so uncertain, these gatherings have become even more precious. People are drawn to them because they feel safe, because they create belonging, because around the table you are reminded that you are not alone. 

My own journey began with the flavours of my childhood and then it widened, crossing oceans and connecting cultures that had long been separated. Every dish I serve carries that history.  

Every supper club is an act of remembering, of saying: this is who we are, this is where we have been and this is how we are still here. Heritage is the heartbeat of the table. It is what turns a meal into a story and a gathering into a core memory.

Q5: What moments of surprise or spontaneity do you enjoy most at supper clubs? 

Those moments are the reason I keep doing this. You can plan the menu, you can set the table, but the magic of a supper club lives in what you cannot plan.  

I have seen a singer transform a room with a single note, a dancer turn the floor into a stage, a poet speak a truth that left everyone in silence. And sometimes it is something smaller, like the way two strangers at opposite ends of the table discover they share a dream and suddenly they are no longer strangers.  

Those surprises are not interruptions; they are the essence. They remind me that a supper club is not a performance but a living, breathing creation, one that belongs to everyone in the room. 

Q6: Can you share a supper club experience that has stayed with you and why? 

I will always remember the nights when the music rose without warning. A guest sat down at the piano, another joined in with their voice and suddenly the dinner faded away and we were lifted into something sacred. People swayed together, answered with “amen,” and the room became something larger than itself.  

Those nights reminded me that food may bring people through the door, but it is spirit that keeps them there. A supper club creates the conditions for that spirit to show up. You cannot manufacture it. You cannot sell it. You can only open the space and wait for it to arrive. And when it does, it changes everyone who was there, including me. 

Q7: How do you see supper clubs shaping community and opportunity for others?

For me, the supper club has always been about giving as much as receiving. I have been blessed to feed the powerful and the celebrated, but what matters most to me now is creating a platform for those who are still on their way.  

I invite chefs, artists, dreamers who deserve to be seen and I watch the room make space for them. That is what community looks like. Supper clubs are not just about food, they are about building bridges, about making sure the table is long enough for everyone who needs a seat.  

They create a space where people can not only share a meal, but also connect with others who share their passions, exchange ideas and showcase their work. It is where opportunity begins, not with contracts or deals, but with the simple act of breaking bread together and in doing so, discovering new collaborators, friends and possibilities.

Q8: In what ways are they becoming spaces for new ideas or forgotten traditions? 

I believe a supper club is a bridge between the past and future. On one side, it holds the memory of dishes that could so easily disappear if no one cooks them anymore, recipes whispered through generations, flavours that once carried our ancestors through hardship and celebration alike.  

On the other side, it holds the spark of invention, the freedom for someone to mix traditions, to create something we have never seen or tasted before. Supper clubs give permission to exist in the same space.  

They honour the weight of history while allowing the lightness of imagination. That balance is what makes them powerful, because they remind us that tradition is not a museum piece. It is alive. And when it is alive, it can grow.

Q9: What is your own dream of the perfect supper club and what makes it so? 

Perfection for me is not a luxury. It is not chandeliers or marble floors. It is something much simpler, much more human. My dream supper club is a table where heritage is honoured and creativity flows freely, where strangers arrive with nothing in common but hunger and leave with friendship, memory and belonging.  

It is a room humming with laughter, with music, with food that tells a story. It is unpredictable, it is soulful, it is deeply human. In my perfect supper club, everyone feels seen, everyone feels fed, everyone feels part of something larger than themselves.  

A night that lingers not because it dazzled, but because it touched something real.