New York or London — what’s your table talk style?
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Last weekend I was savouring a delicious pea-and-mint risotto at a dinner party in London when a friend politely pitched a question to the other guests: “Do you mind if we have a single-table conversation?”
The multinational crowd of politicians, business leaders and journalists concurred, and a passionate, wine-soaked debate ensued about the most important topics of the moment (Donald Trump, Keir Starmer, geopolitics and so on).
The discussion was fascinating. But to my mind what was almost as interesting was the fact that my friend, a well-known American author, felt compelled to ask his question at all. For if we had been eating that risotto in New York, Washington or San Francisco, the query would have seemed redundant.
The reason? After a decade of living in New York, I have discovered that American professionals tend to take it for granted that when they meet over dinner they will stage a communal debate.
Indeed, there is a well-worn ritual that is almost as enshrined as the table settings: the starter proceeds with fragmented chatter, but when the main course arrives, someone strikes a glass and lays out a question or topic, aspiring to draw everyone in. If the conversation falters, it ends with dessert; if not, it continues until coffee.
Either way, the idea is basically the 21st-century version of an 18th-century Parisian salon: the guests expect to enjoy an intellectual exchange along with the food, a conversation that might be based around a guest’s book, film, start-up or political campaign (or, failing all that, more discussion of the ultimate conversation starter, Trump).
But British rituals are different. Brits tend to eat later than Americans, drink far more alcohol and hate it when guests ask each other, “What do you do?” (Let alone google each others’ achievements at the table, which is common in the US.)
But what generally goes unmentioned is a more important distinction: that single-table conversations rarely happen in Britain. I first realised this when I started attending friends’ dinners in London a few years ago, when I was visiting from New York: when I tried to start a single conversation, I was told to stop because it was “too serious”.
Then last autumn, I became Provost at King’s College, Cambridge (while also writing columns for the FT), and experienced more cultural surprises. I had assumed, before arriving, that the famous Oxbridge “high tables” — where dons assemble for dinners in the wood-panelled, portrait-laden dining halls — would be the ideal venue for single-table conversations. However, that is not the case. Yes, academics chat with passion to their neighbours. But they cannot imagine communing as a group. And when I once tried to launch that over the cheese-and-port course at one college, I was met with dismay from my gown-wearing colleagues, who declared, “This is just not done here” — code for knuckles being rapped.
Why? One reason is the acoustics, which tend to be bad in ancient dining halls. Personality is another: many academics are introverts. There is also a subtle question about the cultural classification of “work” and “play”. In Oxford and Cambridge it is generally assumed that the work of academic debate takes place in a lecture theatre or laboratory, while dinner is where people relax; performing again feels too much like a job.
However, I suspect there is also another issue at work here, not just in universities but British society more widely: how we treat intellectual capital. In America, the creation of ideas is treated as a vital sphere of economic activity, one that philanthropists think needs to be backed, on an industrial scale, in many forums. Just as the Medicis once sponsored cathedrals or artists, today’s 21st-century luminaries use their cash to sponsor debate, turning economic capital into the cultural and intellectual variant. And since America is also a place that admires ambition and hustle, this fosters a culture of performative intellectual display, be that in a TV studio or at a dinner party.
In Britain, however, hustle is not so readily admired and ambition is sometimes derided as being pushy or showing off. Thus if you are brilliantly clever, you are admired for concealing the fact or cracking jokes about it at your own expense. Few Brits stand up in public and shout that they want to be public intellectuals; or not without a self-deprecating laugh.
Of course, there are many exceptions to this, as with all cultural generalisations. And in my case, I have discovered — after trial and (many) errors — a way to bridge this transatlantic divide. While I cannot expect single-table conversations at the high table, I can do this in my own Provost dining room, since this sits outside the hallowed rituals and rules. So that’s where lively single-table debates have recently taken place on topics from quantum computing and anthropology to global trade law. I hope to take part in many more.
But in the meantime I have had a potent education in the subtle power of social rules. Think of that when you next sit down to dinner; and then toast the joys of cultural differences in the modern world.
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