Is the Sit-Down Dinner Over? Sharing Feasts and Flowing Menus in 2026

For most of my career, the default for a wedding or a big event was the same: sit down, three courses, plated and served to the table. It is not going away entirely, but in 2026 it is no longer the automatic choice - and for a lot of celebrations, it is the wrong one.

The trend everyone in catering is talking about is the move to sharing feasts and flowing menus. Fewer rigid courses, more generous platters down the middle of the table, more movement, more conversation. And it turns out fire cooking is almost perfectly suited to it.

What a Flowing Menu Actually Is

Instead of a fixed sequence of individual plates, a flowing menu unfolds across the event. Fire-cooked canapes as guests arrive. Sharing boards and platters brought out to the table to pass around. Grazing tables people return to through the evening. It is relaxed, abundant and sociable - dinner as something you do together rather than something delivered to you.

The effect on a room is remarkable. People talk more, move more, and the meal stops being a formal interruption and becomes the heart of the party.

Put a whole shoulder of venison in the middle of a table and tell people to help each other. Watch what it does to the conversation. That is the whole idea.
- Cai

Why Fire Was Built for Sharing

Live fire cooking has always been communal. The asado, the barbecue, the hearth - these are the original sharing meals. When we cook a whole animal over an Argentine asado cross and carve it onto boards, we are not adapting to a trend, we are doing the thing fire has always done best.

It scales beautifully too. Sharing formats work for an intimate garden wedding and for a three-hundred-strong festival crowd alike, which is something we learned feeding thousands at festivals.

Is It Right for Your Event?

Sharing feasts suit relaxed, celebratory, sociable occasions - most weddings, parties and away-days. If you need a formal, tightly-timed dinner with speeches slotted between precise courses, a plated service may still fit better, and we happily do both. The honest advice in our guide to choosing a caterer applies here: pick the format that matches the day you actually want.

For most people, though, the flowing feast is the one that leaves the warmest memories - and it pairs naturally with the interactive fire stations that are defining weddings this year.

So is the sit-down dinner over? Not quite. But it has serious competition now, and for anyone who wants their event to feel generous, relaxed and genuinely sociable, the sharing feast is winning - and fire is leading the way.

- Cai