HOW I HOST

With Sophia Pelizzoli

THE CERAMICIST HOST

She started creating plates to host friends and made a career out of it

If you thought you were the host with the most, please step aside. Self-taught cook, ceramicist and supper-club extroadinaire Sophia Pelizzoli designs and hand-makes an entire plate collection for each dinner party she hosts. In this installment of HOW I HOST, we pull up a chair to find out how she quit her corporate job for her new enviable lifestyle of being commissioned to host dinner parties and how the plate-making started. We also take a snoop into her kitchen to find out what cookbooks and tablescaping must-haves we should be buying. 

"I was a bit insane. I did three courses worth of plates for 45 people. All hand-thrown and painted."

You hand-make and sell plates for supper clubs, how did that start?

I set myself a goal last year to host four supper clubs, one a season, and then just take pictures and videos as I went and see how I went along. At the time I was working in a job that had me bored senseless. I'd spend all day, every day at my desk, like dreaming of coming home and what I was going to cook and how I was going to make it look. For my first one I made and painted a whole set of dinner plates and that's when I sort of got hooked on the idea of every supper club, I needed to paint a new set. After that the Instagram sort of took off a little and I started getting approached by brands. I was a bit insane. In May I did three courses worth of plates for 45 people and thrown hand painted, which is a bit bonkers. My designs will depend on the season and what I'm cooking. I've done a series of blue fruit plates, bird plates, each with a different colored rim. Pasta bowls with like pastely pinks, blues and purples.

You're planning an dinner party, where do you start?

The first thing would be the food. So it would be: what time of year is it? Late April, I'm thinking last of the wild garlic, asparagus. Early summer, it's beans. It's all very green in my mind. I have this calendar called 'Mainly Breakfast' by Emma Cantley, she'll do a little list of all of the seasonal ingredients in the UK. It's cheating really. The colour scheme comes out of that. Seasonal flowers are also important. I always use a white tablecloth, it's very traditional but I just think it gets too busy. I feel like I'm preaching to the choir but candles are essential. When the candles are going and everyone's around the table, it sort of casts this warm, glowing shell, and it feels like you're all, in this little world together. Oh, dinner party playlist! I love French music.

"Late April, I'm thinking last of the wild garlic, asparagus. Early summer, it's beans."

What cookbooks are on your shelf?

I grew up in an Italian family, so the kind of food that I know really instinctively, it's all Italian, so the River Café cookbook, it's very ingredient- led, very simple Italian cuisine. There's a slow- cooked sausage ragu with penne and fennel and I think I probably make it about eight to ten times a winter. They also have like a big lemon polenta cake or a chocolate nemesis cake, and you just can't go wrong, they're delicious. Diana Henry is another food writer that would be a go- to. She writes beautifully as well. She's got this book called How to Eat a Peach, it all feels very seasonal and instinctive. I recently made her chocolate and olive oil cake. 

What's in your tablescaping cupboard?

For flowers I use vases from Petersham Nurseries or old Campari bottles. I obviously hand-make all my own plates, serving bowls and platters and even candle holders. For tumblers i've got loads of Venetian glasses. I've got some from a brand called a Mexican brand called Casa Kelva. 

SHOP SOPHIA'S PLATES

Sophia's Pygmalion picks