A themed dinner experience puts mystery on the menu
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What's for dinner? That's for two Cincinnati food lovers to know and you to find out. Photos: Courtesy of Sydney Guido
One of the hottest tickets on the Cincinnati dining scene comes with a dress code, a secret ingredient and a table full of strangers.
Why it matters: Calé, created by Alex Driscoll and Caroline Leach, is both a dinner party and a social experiment. It's built around adventurous food and making new friends.
The backstory: The idea was born on a trip to Spain and Portugal, where Driscoll and Leach had a meal so memorable they cried over one of the dishes.
- They dreamed up their first menu on the flight home. The name Calé is a mashup of "Carolina" and "Alé," the Spanish names they called each other on the trip.
The intrigue: Neither is a professional chef. Driscoll works in pharmaceutical sales and marketing, while Leach works in IT.
- Their culinary résumé was mostly themed dinners for friends and, as Driscoll puts it, "a little bit of passion and blind confidence."
How it works: Each intimate dinner revolves around a secret ingredient woven through every course.
- Around 20 guests receive a color theme as a clue and often dress accordingly, but don't learn the featured ingredient beforehand.
- Driscoll and Leach still cook every dish themselves, with friends and family pitching in on plating, serving and cleanup. About 90% of the tomatoes for their most recent dinner came from Leach's dad's garden.
The vibe: Calé intentionally doesn't tell guests who else is coming, mixing ages and social circles around a communal table.
- The goal isn't exclusivity, Driscoll says, but keeping dinners small enough for strangers to actually talk.
- After one recent meal, a guest told them it "felt like a family meal." That's exactly what they're going for: people arriving as strangers and leaving feeling a little more like friends.
If you go: New dinners are teased on Calé's Instagram, with RSVP links typically dropping about a month ahead on a first-come, first-served basis.
- Prices vary by event and venue. The most recent four-course dinner cost $65.
What's next: Calé doesn't have a permanent home. The dinners move among private residences and other spaces around Cincinnati, with Northern Kentucky also on the creators' wish list.
- They're also experimenting with "Casual Calé," smaller pop-ups that keep the shared ingredient concept without the formal ticketed dinner. That's happening this Sunday at The Pitch starting at 4pm.