The first DRZZL supper club

We launched DRZZL the way we intend it to be used.

Around a table.

For our first ever supper club, we took over NOSTRA in Homerton and brought everyone together to celebrate the launch of the oil.

Natalia put together a seasonal menu built around the best ingredients we could get our hands on, plenty of DRZZL and one of the things we say most often:

Good ingredients do most of the work.

When the tomatoes are properly in season, the beans are genuinely good and the olive oil brings something of its own, dinner requires considerably less interference.

So we let them get on with it.

A table at NOSTRA

NOSTRA is a neighbourhood space in Homerton built for exactly this sort of thing.

Long tables. Drinks. Food moving around. People staying considerably longer than they originally intended.

By day the space is MONELLA. By night it becomes NOSTRA, with aperitivo, seasonal food, events and gatherings taking over.

It felt like the right place to start ours.

Start with the good stuff

Bold Bean Co. provided the beans for the salads, paired with Isle of Wight Tomatoes at exactly the time of year you want to be eating them.

Very little needed doing beyond treating them properly and finishing generously with Table.

That is really the point.

Good cooking does not mean making every ingredient unrecognisable by the time it reaches the table.

Sometimes it means knowing when you already have enough.

DRZZL in the glass

We also decided the olive oil did not need to stay on the plate.

Sapling provided the sustainable vodka and gin for the evening, including dirty vodka martinis on arrival finished with DRZZL.

They went down rather well.

YEW kept everyone supplied with their flavoured sparkling waters, while our friends at S.Pellegrino provided the water for the table.

An important contribution to an evening where everyone was otherwise encouraged to keep eating and drinking.

And then there was dessert

Hackney Gelato supplied pots of their vanilla gelato.

We finished them with a big pour of Table and sea salt.

Vanilla ice cream, peppery olive oil and salt is one of those combinations that sounds slightly unnecessary until you eat it.

Then it becomes difficult to understand why you weren't doing it already.

The table

The nicest part of the evening was also the least complicated.

People sat down.

Food moved around.

Bottles moved around.

Plates emptied.

People poured more oil than they probably would have at home.

Which is more or less everything we wanted DRZZL to encourage in the first place.

Cooking properly is not about making dinner more elaborate.

It is about good ingredients, using enough of them and putting food in front of people you want to spend time with.

Launching DRZZL around a table felt like a fairly good place to start.

With thanks

A huge thank you to everyone who helped us put the first one together.

NOSTRA for giving us somewhere to put everyone.

YEW for the flavoured sparkling waters.

Sapling for the sustainable vodka and gin.

S.Pellegrino for keeping the table watered.

Bold Bean Co. for the beans.

Isle of Wight Tomatoes for tomatoes that required very little persuasion.

And Hackney Gelato for the vanilla gelato we inevitably covered in olive oil.

Good ingredients did most of the work.

We just put everyone around a table.

Where next?

This was the first DRZZL supper club.

Definitely not the last.

We want to take them to different places, cook with different people and keep finding reasons to put everyone around a table.

So, where should we host the next one?

A restaurant.

A rooftop.

A farm.

Someone's garden.

A place we haven't thought of yet.

If you know the place, tell us.

We might just turn up with the oil.