It occurs to me, thinking further about my previous post, that there is nothing nicer than having a meal cooked for you. Then I got to thinking why it was relatively rare for people to have business meetings over meals they have cooked rather than at posh restaurants? It would establish so much more close a relationship with the person being entertained.
There are plenty of reasons why not, of course. People in big cities live miles and miles from the business districts, making it very difficult to travel there for the client. Also, inviting someone to a home requires a degree of prior intimacy in most cases. Many people will be living in messy, not particularly posh environments and would not want to invite a client in their smart business life to their not-so-smart home reality. If the client is a woman and the host is a man there is another whole range of issues: there are beds in homes and uncomfortably close beds in bedsits. All in all, the wrong messages might be being sent and received.
Which brings me to my idea. Posh restaurants have been invented and reinvented a million times in places like London and New York. Everybody is looking for the coming thing and will pay any amount to take their business clients to it. So what about an eating place that was nothing more than a series of very swish private kitchen-diners, with all ingredients ready and waiting for the customers (and perhaps sly evening classes to help incompetents like me to prepare for their role as the chef)? Surely there could be no better way to cement a close business relationship than by cooking a succulent roast for the boss of the other company and chatting over the kitchen top with a glass of red wine in hand as you burn the pudding.
(Not a bad way to cement a more personal relationship either, so long as there are no purple potatoes involved!)
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