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Come Dine with Me
series • Competition reality
PG
series • Competition reality
PG
When Come Dine With Me first aired in 2005, viewers watched as five strangers hosted dinner parties, vying for a £1,000 prize. Beyond the spectacle of reality TV, it revealed the uniquely human experience of dining with strangers.
Twenty years on, the popularity of the TV show shows no signs of slowing down – and the visceral allure of dining with new acquaintances is enjoying a twenty-twenties glow-up. There's supper clubs like and , broad platforms such as and and a growing number of curated, neatly packaged and convenient social dining apps and platforms which offer up events ranging from home-hosted dinner parties to farmer's market visits.
The importance of social dining in modern lives
Food naturally brings people together, says Sam Richardson, founder of one such platform, . "It's a common ground, a practice we all undertake everyday which, when presented with the somewhat daunting concept of meeting new people, can provide a familiarity and comfort.”
Credit: Thomas Barwick/Getty Images
"The dinner setting is the perfect icebreaker," adds Alessia Briano, Country Manager for Australia and New Zealand at Timeleft, an app which arranges weekly dinners on Wednesday nights at various restaurants worldwide, using a personality quiz to match participants for compatibility. “Sharing a meal naturally encourages conversation.”
In an age of screen fatigue, dining apps offer the chance for real-life interaction. Simple haptic interactions – passing menus, clinking glasses – help break down social barriers and make connections feel more intimate and genuine can only happen offline.
Simple haptic interactions – passing menus, clinking glasses – help break down social barriers.
"There’s a growing desire for real, face-to-face interactions," says Alessia. "As much as technology has connected us, it's also created distance… we wanted to create a platform where people could form genuine connections in a fast-paced world."
Making friends in new places
For Sam, the difficulty of making friends while moving between cities was a major motivation for launching the app. “I knew from my research that I wasn’t the only one experiencing these challenges; the global focus on disconnection highlighted as much – 36 per cent of Australians feel lonely each week, according to 2022 ABS statistics.”
“While some users are new to a city and looking to build a social circle, many simply want to expand their social group to include people with shared interests,” she explains.
Eatwith is another such app which connects travellers with locals through food experiences. For travellers using Eatwith, it means ‘being more active and respectful visitors, engaging with local communities in a way that honours their cultures and traditions’.
The mystery of dining with strangers, while it may be a daunting part of the experience, is also the appeal – it’s catnip for us curious humans, where we can break routine and embrace novelty and discovery. Which is exactly what shows like Come Dine With Me showcase to great effect.
Timeleft’s dinners are designed to help people step out of their social bubbles for a dinner that ‘feels comfortable but also fresh and exciting’. Their diverse mix ranges from participants in their 20s to their 70s, ‘each bringing unique stories and experiences to the table’.
Food as a vehicle for personal growth
All this interacting, exploring of experiential frontiers and delving into the unknown comes with another benefit: personal enrichment.
“With convenience and comfort driving our day-to-day activity, it’s becoming harder to step outside of our comfort zones in the pursuit of growth,” says Our Table founder, Mollie Nelson-Williams.
Butter's Sam adds to this, “At our core we’re solving for self-actualisation... We help people use connection to invent themselves, by giving them access to the people that will get them to where they want to go.”
“We want to create experiences that are beyond connection; if people know that they’re going to get, at bare minimum, an amazing dinner, a talk from someone they admire or the chance to do an activity they love, it’s going to remove a lot of the barriers to showing up.”
Credit: Butter dining guests. Photo by Jessie Obialor
4 of the best social dining apps and how to join them
The appeal of these platforms is multifaceted and unique for each user and experience. So, whether your friends don’t have time for dinner on a Wednesday night, or not into the pasta-making class in Rome with you, or you are new in town, or simply want to meet new like-minded people and expand your social circle, there's an app for that!
- Butter helps users organise and find events and activities – from morning coffee walks to Saturday morning bike rides, with a particular emphasis on dining events. “We help people to connect intentionally with the social plans and friends that they want,” says Sam Richardson. It is currently Melbourne-based. Users can browse or create events, and hosts curate guest lists. To join, complete the on their website. Butter plans to expand nationwide as well as opening the platform more widely for groups to host events.
- Timeleft "We were inspired by the simple, powerful idea of how food brings people together," says Alessia Briano. Register and pay through the or app to secure their spot at a weekly Wednesday night dinner at venues throughout Australia. There’s also an ‘After Drinks’ event for participants of that week's dinner.
- Eatwith offers food experiences such as meals hosted in the homes of locals, cooking classes, culinary tours, so travellers can create “meaningful social dining experiences by connecting travellers and locals through food,” says Laura Arciniegas, Research and Communication Manager at Eatwith. They do not yet have events in Australia, but it’s a great option for travellers – choose from events like a ‘Seasonal Parisian dinner in an elegant Montmartre home’ in Paris or a ‘Wagyu and Sake Pairing’ in Tokyo. Register, browse and book events or through their app.
- Club Sup Doing exactly what it says on the tin, this supper club concept was birthed in the pandemic era. They currently host events in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, and have expanded to include book clubs, art clubs and breakfast clubs underpinned with the ethos of 'gathering with purpose'. Sign up for their events through their
So, if you want to recreate your own version of the Come Dine With Me experience, social dining apps provide a unique way to do it. Each approach is nuanced, but at their core is to gather strangers to eat and drink together.
As Sam puts it, “We already crowdsource cars, holiday houses, handywork and food deliveries. So why aren’t we crowdsourcing community?”
