Host: Murray Norton (MN)

Guests: Johnny Roxburgh (JR)

MN: Hello and welcome to Webchats, very good of you to join us. You may be wondering why I've got a pink grapefruit cocktail in my hand, I'll explain a little bit more later. Today we're going to be talking about dinner parties. Do you know that two thirds of us love having dinner parties, one of ten is scared stiff of holding one though. Why? Well, maybe the room is too small, maybe we're not up to the cooking, maybe we're frightened that things will go so wrong and it will be such a stress, why don't we just go out to a restaurant for dinner instead? But there is nothing like the dinner party, and the dinner party is very much back in vogue, and not so much cheese and wine and fondue as it was back in the seventies. To talk a bit more about the dinner party set of 2006 I'm delighted to welcome Johnny Rockford with us. Johnny, you've been running dinner parties for everyone, from the royals at Windsor to rock stars and footballers and everyone else. You probably know more about dinner parties than anyone else. They are very stressful aren't they?

JR: They are very, very stressful, and certainly if you, like me, can't cook it's a nightmare. I tend to try and get things that are very simple to do so that they can't go wrong.

MN: Keep it simple. Clara wants to know, "I know you're supposed to be discreet, but can you give us any gossip from one of your Royal dinner parties?"

JR: Oh no, I can't, I am famously discreet.

MN: But that's why you get the job!

JR: Exactly, if I spilt the beans they would never, ever, ever come back to me.

MN: Where have you done the parties?

JR: In all the palaces.

MN: Buckingham? Windsor?

JR: Yes. But you mustn't press me too far!

MN: But the facilities must be fantastic though.

JR: They are. And the people are very charming. They are very nice. We have lots of other clients though, we do about 500 events a year.

MN: Is it difficult trying to think of something different to do for a dinner party? Because one guesses that if we do one at home and there's going to be four or six or ten people, then it's difficult if certain people only come back twice a year, but you've got to think of something different every time.

JR: I think very often it's dictated by where you are going to hold the party actually, and the time of year. It could be a Bar Mitzvah, a birthday party, so there are all kinds of things that will help you get though it.

MN: Pete in Glasgow says, "Johnny, help! I've a dinner party for six tonight, I need starters and sweets that I can prepare for this evening."

JR: What you need to have is something that's really, really straightforward. If I was being very cowardly I'd go to Marks & Spencer's and buy something for pudding. For a first course why don't you nip into your local deli and buy yourself some delicious chevre and put it onto some toast, then grill it and have that with tiny cherry tomatoes that you can split with balsamic vinegar and olive oil and a little bit of garlic.

MN: There you go Pete, goat's cheese on toast, it's always a winner and it's vegetarian too. Jane says, "I'm throwing a dinner party, my first ever, not this weekend but next weekend. There are nine of us, new house, new fella, new neighbours. I'm an average cook, so anything I should try?"

JR: I think you need to think very carefully about how you are going to introduce these new neighbours to one another and you need to get yourself ready so that when you open the door you are looking relaxed and smiling and you haven't got clouds of steam coming out of the kitchen. You need to give them cocktails beforehand.

MN: Mine's half empty!

JR: I haven't even started mine, but it's delicious. It's pink grapefruit juices and Cointreau, with a little bit of fresh lime juice, and I'd serve one of those. It's a time that they can mingle and you can introduce them to one another. You can make a link so that they have something to talk about, and it's a great thing if you can manage not to be rushing backwards and forwards to the kitchen the whole time, so keep it simple. Don't do anything that you'll regret!

MN: So preparing in advance is the crucial thing?

JR: Absolutely. I think cold starters and cold puddings are the way forward, then do something simple for the main course. Then you can be a good hostess.

MN: There does seem to be a fashion, if you look at Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver, that it's not plate-served, it's one big dish.

JR: Which is lovely. If you've got a kitchen that's big enough to eat in, how fantastic just to open the oven door, put it down on the work surface and people can come and help themselves. They have the chance to chat while they are doing that, they don't feel they are sitting there like ducks on a shooting range. It's much more relaxed.

MN: Jess has got a problem too, "I'm a student and I've got one room and a galley kitchen."

JR: Go out Jess, go out! Go to a restaurant love.

MN: The dinner party is feeling like a bit of a non-starter here Jess. She'd really like to do something though because she gets invited round to her friends' all the time. Carpet picnic?

JR: That sounds like a really fun thing to have actually. If your kitchen is very small, you need to do things which aren't going to be too complicated and you need to have not so many guests. I used to live in a one bedroom flat and I used to be very over-the-top, of course, running a catering company. I had fifteen or sixteen people for dinner and it was a disaster because they were all sitting in very tight spaces. I think you shouldn't do something which is too complicated and you shouldn't invite too many people. Perhaps four? Maybe six.

MN: Finger food would be good. Have you ever served food where people have had to eat off their laps?

JR: Yes, of course, absolutely. Also doing substantial canapés is a good idea. Also there's a trend for bowl food, so you can do salade nicoise in a bowl like that that you buy very cheaply in places like Habitat, and it's wonderful to be able to have that and chopsticks and it's a fun way to entertain. I certainly enjoy that.

MN: It is that deep, dark time of the year where it's all a bit gloomy. So too brighten things up a little bit. You have a fabulous display here; it looks like it's the middle of summer!

JR: Ah but these are from Florida. What's so lovely about these, and I feel a bit like I'm on QVC or something, but this is very delicious, extra juicy pink grapefruit. The Florida grapefruits have about 55% juice as opposed to the European ones, which have 45%. They are delicious and there are plenty of them at this time of year. It's all summery and fun.

MN: Kevin wants to know, "Table decorations: I'm a bloke and I'm ham-fisted, I just don't do flower arranging! Can you give me some fresh table decorating ideas?"

JR: Well Kevin, particularly at this time of year when, as you say, it's dark and cold, it's a good idea to have candles on the table and then simply take some roses like this and rip the petals off them and scatter. Even I can rip petals off and scatter on the table. So you can have roses with great colours, and candle light is very flattering.

MN: I love those grapefruits in the bottom of that bowl!

JR: Yes, it's very fun.

MN: Well people have obviously seen them, because someone's asking, "Can I do anything with grapefruit other than serve it for breakfast?"

JR: Oh God yes! You can make cocktails, you can grill it, and grapefruit rind, scrape it off, it's fantastic for cleaning your hands or putting in the bath. It gives you a wonderful bath soak that is very effective. And I've read that women who smell of grapefruit appear younger by three or four years because men perceive them as being younger. Of course you can also do this and make a wonderful room spray. This is a cologne, which is a combination of grapefruit and rosemary. When you have a room spray, particularly if you're cooking, you need to have room spray that makes you want to eat, that makes the juices inside your stomach go. I think all citrus fruits are wonderful but grapefruit is particularly good.

MN: We've got these drinks in front of us and I want to talk a little bit more about them.

JR: I'll tell you another great trick. If you go out for dinner with your wife or lover or whoever, if when you are sitting in a restaurant, you angle the glass so you can just see the nightlight or candle through the liquid, when the light hits your eyes it irons out every bag and wrinkle in your face, and for me that is just perfect! It's natural up lighting.

MN: Brilliant! Could you just run through what is in this again because I'm really enjoying it.

JR: It's vodka, pink grapefruit juice, Cointreau, fresh lime, tiny bit of sugar syrup, then we've taken a lime and we've taken the peel off and added that. It's a fantastic drink.

MN: Luca is London. He runs a small bar and says, "We're having beach party nights in the winter, need some alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails for when people come in. Any ideas?"

JR: Fantastic idea! Well he's got this, which is very good and is a wonderful colour. Of course you can dress this up with all kinds of fun things, you could put little monkeys on the side of it or parrots or something. If you've been to Florida they have wonderful parakeets, which are taken over as our most prolific developing bird in the UK. You can have all kinds of things hanging off. This is a very delicious cocktail we have here, it's pink grapefruit juice, a little bit of lime, topped up with soda water, add a little bit of mint, and top up with ice. It's a very refreshing drink and very, very delicious.

MN: This is the best job in the world! The mint really comes through in that. Mmm. Question from David now, "Punch: good idea or bad idea?"

JR: Bad idea. I think it's such a lethal thing. I always look at it and think, my God, what have they put in it? And think I'll be comatose in about two seconds. So no punch.

MN: Sorry Dave! James wants to know, "I've always wanted to know if it's the done thing to take wine to a dinner party? In some circles you are expected to."

JR: It's a very interesting point and often depends on your financial situation and your age. If you're eighteen and you're going to your mate's for supper when you can't afford to buy it is a bit over-the-top. And wine buffs may be horrified by this, but once you've got to your second or third glass you probably can't tell the difference as long as it's the same colour anyway, certainly at that age. If you are someone who loves to drink wine, then to bring wine is very nice and people can then put it one the wine rack. But I think if you are doing a dinner party it's good to be serving consistently the same wine.

MN: If you receive wine at a dinner party, it's very bad form to serve it isn't it? You serve the wine you were going to serve anyway.

JR: Yes, absolutely. Unless you are young, in which case it's thank God there's another bottle of wine, let's get plastered!

MN: Yes! Right, let's move onto etiquette questions now. Amy wants to know, "Can you tell me, how do you mix different culture and nationality at a party?"

JR: I just think that in this day and age that shouldn't be a question that anybody has to ask. My father used to say to me that nobody is boring for half an hour, and if they are it's your fault. I think it's a real treat to have people that have come from different ethnic backgrounds and different nationalities because there is so much that they can tell you and so much that you can learn from them and that's really fun. I don't think it should be an issue and you certainly shouldn't worry about it.

MN: Obviously there may be restrictions on food or drink.

JR: Yes of course. But I think certainly I would never serve pork, and if I was serving shellfish I'd make sure there was an alternative. I just came back from South Africa and they had the most fantastic restaurants in Cape Town and I got really, really bad food poisoning and it was only because I'd eaten a bad mussel. It was delicious though, it was worth being sick for.

MN: Kelly in Barnstable wants to know, "Is it rude to ask guests if they have any special dietary requirements?"

JR: No, I think it is incredibly flattering. It's very nice thing to do. In this day and age it also safeguards you because if someone is allergic to mushrooms or nuts, then a trace of nut oil and you'll have someone gasping in the middle of your dinner party and it rather spoils it.

MN: I suppose at your parties you have to double check all of those things, and cross contamination within the kitchen can happen, you have to make sure things are cooked separately.

JR: Absolutely, but we have an incredibly rigorous health and safety policy and incredibly rigorous hygiene standards. In fact every single thing we cook, we take a sample and we freeze, and we keep it for a fortnight so if any ever cam back to us and said we'd poisoned them, which thankfully they haven't, we can say we have a sample and have it tested.

MN: Back to etiquette questions, Ben wants to know, "How do you fill in those pregnant pauses round the dinner table and do you have standard openers?"

JR: I don't because when you look at when they happen, it's always twenty to or twenty past. I have a great theory that what you need to do is go up to people and you have that terrible pause when you look at someone you know perfectly well and you're going to introduce them, I have a list that I put in the loo with everyone's name on it and a one-liner beside their name. I have that for two weeks before I give a drinks party, so when I say, "Murray, this is X from Y" I also give a link so that they are able to converse. So when you have a pause and know something about somebody, that's when you throw it into the conversation, or think of something absolutely outrageous that will cause a ripple round the table, because you don't want to have a dinner party that's boring. Be controversial!

MN: Emily wants to know how you deal with someone who's a crushing bore at a dinner party.

JR: Don't invite them again! Off the list. People are bores, or sometimes you get someone who just takes over. Cut down on their alcohol. Or perhaps give them more and let them pass out!

MN: Phil's got a question, "Can you judge someone by the bottle of wine they bring?"

JR: I think if you judge someone by the bottle of wine they bring, the problem is yours not theirs.

MN: Good answer!

JR: I think it would be embarrassing if they gave you a bottle of wine you had given to them. That's a worry. It's like those awful Christmas presents you put in a draw and give to other people and it says with love from Maisy.

MN: Can I ask, does anyone at these top dinner parties that you organise, do people bring a bottle to them?

JR: No, no. I don't think so. They often bring a present, which is nice.

MN: Wendy wants to know, "Do you try and forget how important your guests are when you are creating a menu?"

JR: Yes you do. You just have to say to yourself they go to the loo like the rest of us, they breathe and smile and it's a common misconception that people who are very rich or very famous or very smart are difficult. I've met some very, very, very successful people and I've found them to be incredibly charming. If you treat them like they are Joe Bloggs then you usually get on really well. I did a dinner for Robert Maxwell, who's now dead, and I didn't know who he was! Everyone was terrified of this man and I though he was completely charming. Everyone was saying, 'That's Robert Maxwell!' and I said who's he? I think you have to treat everyone the same.

MN: Moe wants to know, "What's the most famous or glamorous guest list you have ever had?"

JR: I'd love to tell you but part of my life is to be very discreet. I can't answer that, sorry.

MN: Do you do parties where you see people you didn't know were an item and so on?

JR: Yes! I was in Paris at the weekend and there was someone there with someone else, and I thought they were both married to completely different people! Very interesting. But I can't tell you who they were.

MN: What's the strangest setting you've ever provided for a dinner party?

JR: I had to transform the Natural History Museum into a jungle. Health & Safety would never let me do it nowadays, but I took the staircase out of the museum and had a huge mask behind it and we had a huge waterfall. We only had a n hour and quarter from the time the museum closed to the time the guests came in and had to turn the entire thing into a cascade and bring in all these palm trees.

MN: How many people worked on that?

JR: I think about 350. There were lorries parked all the way down Cromwell Road unloading the stuff.

MN: That's an army of people! Bo24 wants to know what the most embarrassing dinner party gaffe you've ever heard of is?

JR: You sometimes see at dinner parties people being incredibly drunk and rude, and you just have that awful feeling when you can hear a pin drop and you want the whole floor to open up and the table to be swallowed. And the crushing bore you were talking about before.

MN: I once had a drink that went down the wrong way and I coughed and sprayed a Lieutenant Governor

JR: My niece got married the other day and one of the bridesmaids' boyfriends walked passed carrying a bottle of red wine and he dropped it and covered my sister-in-law's dress with red wine and the bride's dress with red wine. But do you know what, she was so brilliant about it, and I said, 'You're never going to wear it again! Why worry!'.

MN: Maureen wants to know if you could pick five people to make the perfect dinner party guests?

JR: I think I'd have Sting and Trudy, they are very nice and she is such a charming and adorable woman, I'd be fascinated to meet this new David Cameron man, I think him and his wife look as though they'd be interesting, she looks nice. And then me and Madonna! How about that.

MN: Is she a good client?

JR: I have to tell you that I once did a party where Madonna was a guest and right at the early days where they had gold banqueting chairs, and we sprayed them silver, lacquered them, and as I was putting the final chair in place I realised all the paint was coming off and Madonna, who was the guest of honour, was the only guest without a dark dress on and luckily it didn't mark! Charlotte Rampling had a thing like a prison cell on the back of her dress!

MN: Hilarious! Last question, what would be your five golden rules that ensure you have a successful evening?

JR: Firstly make sure than your friends are not boring. Then you yourself need to have enough time to have a bath and be relaxed and chilled when they come. I would give them a first course that you can eat with your fingers, like artichokes or prawns, something like that. Make sure the lighting is perfect, get the lights down low and get yourself lots of candles. Give them lots to drink, but not too much before dinner.

MN: I assume that people can find out more about these grapefruit drink somewhere?

JR: Just search for the Florida Department of Citrus. There is a link on the website too.

MN: Thank you so much for giving us some fantastic ideas and a little bit of gossip. Cheers! Thank you for joining us on Webchats too.