For the poshest of soirées, channel the French design legend…
Christian Dior was a gourmand who compared cooking with couture: “The ingredients we use when cooking are just as noble as the materials used in couture.” He loved elegant dishes prepared by his personal chef Georges Huilier – scrambled eggs with truffles, sweet pepper ravioli, soft-boiled egg on a bed of caviar, banana sorbet, pear ice cream … all humble ingredients elevated by a splash of luxury or their cooking.
You can sample many of Mr Dior’s favourite recipes at the Restaurant Monsieur Dior, 32 Avenue Montaigne, Paris.
Channel its monochrome colour scheme with an Acrila Sixteen houndstooth chair, €806; www.thelongeststay.com
Read Dior’s recipe collection La Cuisine Cousu-Main (Tailor-Made Cuisine)…
featuring artwork by fashion illustrator René Gruau www.diorpress.com
As for a dinner party menu, Mr Dior always enjoyed entrecôte frites before his shows. Invest in a set of steak knives, €55; www.newbridgesilverware.com.
Serve roast chicken stuffed with fromage blanc with a tossed green salad in a Provence salad bowl, €165, Holmegaard; www.nordicelements.com
and duchesse or dauphinois potatoes (Mr Dior loved spuds!).
Serve these in a toile du Jouy tureen, €1,600; www.dior.com.
and season with salt from a swan-shaped salt cellar and spoon, €180, L’Objet; www.amara.com
Add a bottle of chilled Chablis, his favourite wine. Julie Dupouy suggests: “It has to be the most elegant of all Grands Crus: Chablis Grand Cru Vaudésir by Jean Paul & Benoit Droin 2015.”
Serve water in a pretty leaf-embellished jug, €70; www.newbridgesilverware.com.