About
Chance Dinners organizes large, prix-fixe dinners for NYC professionals, ages 28 - 42. We were recently featured in this article in the New York Post.
Dinners vary in size from 20 - 50 people, depending on the venue--sometimes the private rooms of restaurants, and othertimes private lofts.
Dining in a large group can be great fun, and we've streamlined the experience by dispatching with the suckiest parts: The Menu and The Check. Diners are choose to attend based on a set menu (with pairings) and pay a fixed price (including tax and tip) in advance via PayPal. This frees everyone from poring over menus or dividing up a check among people who never have change for twenties.
All Chance Dinners are omakaze-style. For those of you unfamiliar with “Omakaze,” this Japanese term refers to when the chef gets wasted and flies a plane laden with explosives into the restaurant, killing us all. It also means “at the chef’s delight.” We humbly accept that a good chef knows more about how to dazzle us on any given night than we do, so we bow down to their expertise and let them propose menus.
Chefs love that we are a more adventurous group of eaters, freeing them from "safety entrees" like salmon and chicken breast. We encourage them to cook the meals they most love. At all Chance Dinners, the chef introduces the meal and its pairings, explaining his or her desire to provide and share that particular dining experience. Eating is a lot more fun when you're informed about what you're eating (and drinking), and when you understand the chef's rationale for preparing the meal.
This is very different from sitting down in a restaurant and unfolding a vast menu. Chance Dinners reconnects diners with the chef, while connecting single gastronomes to one another.
So, admit it: You're lonely and you're hungry. Let's fix that.
Chance Dinners was created by John Blesso as an extension of Chance, his beach house for epicurean singles in Kismet, Fire Island. Like a tobacco company killing off its customers, Chance has been making its members less single since 2004.