An Italian dinner party is the best kind of dinner party to be invited to. The wine flows early and frequently; the atmosphere is laid-back and convivial; there’s more likely than not some sort of pasta in your future.
It’s no secret that Italians have perfected the art of entertaining—whether it’s a low-key aperitivo or a cornucopian spread—and while, sure, you could book a ticket to Milan to experience it first-hand, we went straight to the source, asking five locals for their best hosting tips in celebration of Vogue World: Milano.
From these recommendations, a few common takeaways emerge. A simple gin and tonic is a failsafe option for cocktail hour, particularly when paired with a really good hunk of Parmigiano.
A table should always feature a mishmash of dinnerware—nothing too formal or polished. A guest list should be flexible, and more often than not include space for last-minute additions.
This is the time to leave any type A tendencies at the door. And perhaps the most important tip of all: “Don’t forget to be in a good mood!” says textile designer Ida Corti.
“To host well, you need to genuinely enjoy it.”
Martina Mondadori, founder and editor-in-chief of Cabana magazine
The Hosting Lesson: For me, Italian hosting is about making people feel completely at ease. It should never feel too perfect or too orchestrated—the best evenings have a certain spontaneity to them. I love mixing generations around the table and I don’t believe in too many rules.
The Go-To Aperitivo: A gin and tonic, always. And very simple things to eat alongside it —good olives, salted almonds, nothing too complicated before dinner.
The Failsafe Hostess Gift: A beautiful guest book. I love the ones by Giulio Giannini in Florence, made with paper marbled by hand—they’re a thoughtful gift and something that becomes more personal with time.
The Dinner Party Outfit: I like to be comfortable when I’m hosting, so usually something quite relaxed and easy. I have my staples—anything Stephan Janson creates I always feel beautiful in. Plus, great jewelry. I love Goossens.
The Tablescape Rule: I never like a table to feel too coordinated. I’m much more interested in mixing things that I’ve collected over time—antique glasses, beautiful linens, pieces brought back from travels—and allowing them to sit together naturally. I love pattern and color, but there needs to be some imperfection, too. Candles are essential, and I prefer my flowers quite loose and informal.
The Menu of the Moment: Food that’s made for sharing: a big bowl of pasta in the middle of the table, plenty of grissini to nibble on, and we always end with our classic chocolate cake. We’ve been serving it since I was young, so it has become a bit of a tradition and is always a crowd-pleaser.
The Tableware Shopping Stops: Our Cabana store in Milan is such a treasure trove—you can always discover something unexpected. I also love Laguna B for their playful and unexpected glassware, Ginori 1735 for beautiful Italian porcelain and Pampaloni in Florence for their wonderful silver pieces.
Milan also has some wonderful antique markets for finding those special pieces; I particularly love the Navigli market on the last Sunday of the month, where you never know what you might find.
Mimi Thorisson, chef and cookbook author
The Hosting Lesson: The first is generosity. There should always be a little too much. More food, more wine, another plate arriving from the kitchen... I love that feeling of abundance. But at the same time, Italian hospitality is never about making everything too perfect. The host should be enjoying the evening too. If everything feels overly arranged, people feel it.
The other thing is time. Nothing should feel rushed. Aperitivo is part of the evening, not something to get through before dinner. People arrive, you pour a drink, you talk, you nibble on something; perhaps someone else arrives half an hour later. Eventually, you move to the table. Dinner is never just the dinner. It is the whole evening.
The Go-To Aperitivo: I like something cold and bitter. A Campari soda, an Americano, a gin and tonic, or a beautiful bottle of Franciacorta. Then, lots of delicious little things that require almost no cooking. Very good olives, salted almonds, chunks of Parmigiano, anchovies with butter and toast, perhaps a few crostini.
The Failsafe Hostess Gift: Something that can be enjoyed—a wonderful bottle of wine or Champagne, preferably chilled and ready to open, beautiful olive oil, chocolates, or flowers from the market. I tend to prefer giving something edible or drinkable unless I know someone’s taste very well. One of the loveliest gifts I ever received was a huge bottle of homemade vanilla extract for cooking. I felt completely spoiled.
The Dinner Party Outfit: A simple spaghetti strap dress in navy or black is almost a uniform for me. There is something so chic about wrapped shoulders, so I frequently add a little shawl or cape.
I have a fascination with the dancer Martha Graham and that feeling of movement—I think about dressing for hosting in the same way. I am constantly moving between the kitchen and the table; the clothes have to move with me.
The Tablescape Rule: Candlelight is my number one rule in the evening. Everything looks better by candlelight, and everyone feels better too. I like the table to be layered and I like a little drama, but never so much decoration that there is nowhere to put the food. I use all sorts of antique glasses, serving pieces, and candlesticks I have collected over time.
The Menu of the Moment: Good bread and very good olive oil, always. Then, something simple and seasonal. I love a sculptural arrangement of vegetables, a beautiful salad, perhaps a pasta, or something generous placed in the middle of the table for everyone to share. I like food that makes people reach across the table, pass plates around and help themselves. It immediately creates a different atmosphere.
The Tableware Shopping Stops: In Milan, I adore Laboratorio Paravicini for plates. I am always looking for antiques and old pieces wherever I travel, and I search eBay and Vinted for vintage Lalique glasses—especially the Art Deco ones. Borgo delle Tovaglie is wonderful for linens, and if I’m shopping online, I love Abask for anything beautiful for the table or the home.
JJ Martin, founder of La DoubleJ
The Hosting Lesson: I moved to Italy when I was 28 and basically had no cooking or entertaining experience, so everything I know now I’ve learned here. The best thing I learned was literally to relax and have fun when people are over, because that sets the tone for everyone else.
Putting people to work in the kitchen is a must—and it helps that most Italians actually know when it’s time to drain the pasta—and makes the whole pre-dinner moment so much more fun.
Another rule that the Italians love and excel at: last minute, spontaneous hosting. Be ready anytime to throw something easy together. The more the merrier is a motto that rules all here, and it’s always cool to bring an extra friend. This used to drive me nuts but once I surrendered, I marveled at how much it always added to the fun.
The Go-To Aperitivo: A huge hunk of Parmigiano, olives, almonds, and grissini or taralli crackers. Another favorite combo is figs with mozzarella slices—you can slice both thin and fan them all out so they look like beautiful feathers. For drinks, it’s always a Sicilian or Sardinian white wine (because Prosecco gives me a headache) and I keep a homemade gin that my Italian chef friend Viviana Varese made for me on-hand.
The Failsafe Hostess Gift: What I love about Italy is that it seems everyone I know is making their own olive oil in some family country house somewhere. Freshly pressed oil is the best.
For those who don’t have access to olive groves (like myself), the Italians like to receive high-quality gelato; I like bringing yogurt with peach or another seasonal fruit, plus a dark chocolate. For more special events, I’ll bring porcelain trinket trays or printed napkins from my store.
Another tip I learned here: If you want to bring flowers, have them sent the day before the event so the hostess has time to arrange them properly before everything starts.
The Dinner Party Outfit: I usually wear one of the LaDoubleJ flowing dresses like the Magnifico, the Marlene, or the Camerino. And then sometimes I will wear a matching set in a special jacquard. I’m either barefoot at home or I’ll wear a Venetian slipper. Never heels!
The Tablescape Rule: Since I have a very busy wallpaper in my dining room, I tend not to use printed tablecloths, and instead use a printed placemat. I like to keep one color story going for the dining room table, and then ferociously mix pattern within that story so it all feels cohesive.
It’s so pretty to have the charger, dinner, and pasta plate all layered with different patterns that all sing well together. Then, you can remove the upper plates as you begin to serve the various courses.
The Menu of the Moment: Multiple salads with lots of seeds, nuts, fruit, and cheese—which always confuses the Italians, but I’m from California, so I can’t help myself. I also love to order the incredible meatballs from the little enoteca down the road; I get veal as well as quinoa versions for the vegetarians. Then, we will almost always have a pasta (but I actually prefer risotto, as it’s gluten-free).
The Tableware Shopping Stops: La DoubleJ is everywhere on my tables at home. Then I’ll mix it up with one-off pieces that come from artisan and antique markets: Twice a year, there’s the Parma flea market.
Last time I went, I found the most exquisite dining table from the 1970s: all wood, beveled, a great chunky square block with a glass top set into the grain. In Milan, there’s the end-of-month market on the Naviglio, which is pure gamble—some months it’s magic, some months it’s a wash.
But that’s the nature of vintage; you can’t control it, and that unpredictability is half the pleasure. If I’m missing anything, I’ll supplement it with extra pieces from Abask.
Ida Corti, CEO and creative director of Lisa Corti
The Hosting Lesson: I tend to prefer smaller gatherings, where conversation can become spontaneous and truly meaningful, and I like to mix people of different backgrounds and ages. I believe homogeneity is the key to boredom. I love having close friends around, people I feel completely comfortable with, but I’m also a curious person, so I equally love meeting new, interesting people along the way.
The Go-To Aperitivo: It changes with the seasons. In summer, once the tomatoes are finally at their best, I make a bloody mary blending fresh, ripe tomatoes—nothing store-bought ever comes close.
There’s always an ice-cold glass of white wine on the table too, alongside a gin and tonic with fresh rosemary from the garden. As the weather turns, this gives way to a classic negroni, while the wine and gin and tonic remain a constant all year long—the wine shifting to red once winter sets in.
For snacks, I have a few go-to spreadable mousses I whip up for crostini in under a minute—tuna, anchovy, or cooked ham—little tricks I’ve made mine over the years, and they’re always a great success. (The tuna one is simply cream cheese blended with canned tuna in olive oil, capers, and a generous amount of lemon zest; the anchovy version is mascarpone blended with anchovies; the cooked ham one is good-quality prosciutto cotto blended with cream cheese and a few drops of Sauternes—the bread always needs to be good and toasted.)
And when I want something lighter, it’s hummus with a colorful array of vegetable sticks.
The Failsafe Hostess Gift: We have a house near the sea in southern Tuscany, in Capalbio, with seventy olive trees and a small artichoke patch. When I want to bring something with a bit more of myself in it, I bring olive oil from my own trees, bottled with a label I designed myself.
Friends always seem to love it. And if I’ve had time to prepare them, I love bringing homemade preserves too—salsa di pomodoro, or carciofini sott’olio.
Otherwise, flowers are always best.
The Dinner Party Outfit: At home, almost always a Lisa Corti kurta—cotton muslin in the warmer months, silk when it turns cooler—worn over slim trousers, with simple, low shoes like Friulane flats or sandals. It’s effortless, but it still feels like me. And on the days when I want something even easier, a kaftan does the job beautifully.
The Tablescape Rule: Working with tablecloths means I never have to worry about having color on my table. I mix patterns freely, layer colors, and let the table tell its own story each time.
But if there’s one thing that’s truly non-negotiable, it’s flowers. I don’t think a table is fully set without them—and they don’t need to be elaborate.
A handful of stems, arranged well among green leaves or scattered in tiny vases down the length of the table, can do the job.
The Menu of the Moment: I love cooking—it’s a pleasure for me, never a stress. My table shifts with the seasons, like a wardrobe change.
In summer, it might open with a rice ring mold—anello di riso—studded with fresh herbs and chopped tomatoes, followed by vitello tonnato, and close with sliced peaches dressed with chestnut honey and Malvasia. Summer, simply isn’t summer without a great mozzarella—mine comes shipped straight from Paestum, traveling by night.
In winter, that same ring mold transforms into a saffron risotto, filled at the center with meatballs and whatever vegetables are in season—artichokes, peas, porcini mushrooms…. I’m also a great believer in savory flans and timbales—sformati—which often find their way onto the table in one form or another. They’re wonderfully practical too, since you can prepare them well ahead of time.
The Tableware Shopping Stops: Lisa Corti, naturally, comes first. But beyond that, I have a real weakness for the plates from Laboratorio Paravicini, and glasses from Vetrerie di Empoli. I love pulling from many different sources and letting them all sit together on the same table. Lights and candles add warmth to any setting.
Tamu McPherson, digital talent and public speaker
The Hosting Lesson: I admire Italian traditions like alternating women and men at the table. I equally love breaking that rule when my girlfriends and I have a running list of things to discuss.
Depending on the size of the party, my mother-in-law prepares the table hours, or even a day or so, in advance. It allows you to be thoughtful and super creative with your tablescape.
I also picked up the practice of serving lactose pills on a pretty tray from a friend this year. She’s an incredible host and always has a fresh take on dining.
The Go-To Aperitivo: I serve Tamu rosé, which I launched last year, Franciacorta, and, if we’re in the mood for cocktails, a spicy mezcal margarita. I love Italian savory aperitivo snacks, from ungheresi salati to roasted almonds, olives, and taralli.
The Failsafe Hostess Gift: Artisanal soaps or whimsical glass rings.
The Dinner Party Outfit: I usually wear a piece that I’m obsessed with at the moment (right now, that’s Rohé’s Panjou jacket) and always include a statement piece—something bold, colorful or tactile.
The Tablescape Rule: I love to mix and match stemware as well as plates. Beyond traditional place settings, I gravitate toward playful tables with eye-catching ornaments like oysters, caviar tins, and sushi rolls. I also like to offer these decorations as gifts to my guests at the end of the evening.
The Menu of the Moment: I love a variety of cuisines, so it’s hard to say, but probably a rice dish—white rice, risotto, or rice and peas.
The Tableware Shopping Stops: We pick up a lot of our tableware from thrift and antique shops. Bitossi Home is a must, Serax creates beautiful objects, and I really love Agustina Bottoni glassware.