The journal · · 5 min
Booking a whole restaurant: a straight guide to private dinners
The shed seats 42 at one long table. Here is what a private night costs, what the fire can and cannot do for a crowd, and the questions to answer first.
A private night at Smokefall means the whole shed: one long table down the middle of the room, the fire at the end of it, forty-two seats at most. Before you write to us, or to any small restaurant, have answers to four questions: how many people, which night of the week, what the occasion actually is, and whether anyone at the table cannot eat what a fire cooks.
What a buyout costs and why
We price a private night as the room's normal Saturday, not as a premium event. Midweek buyouts cost meaningfully less, which is the honest lever most planners never pull. The menu is set with Ren two weeks out, and it is a fire menu: a spit roast, boards down the table, the falling-oven desserts. It is not a plated tasting and pretending otherwise would disappoint us both.
What the fire does well for a crowd
Whole animals, whole fish, one long table eating the same thing at the same time. What it does badly: eleven individually timed mains and anything that must be silent, because a hearth pops. Book the room for the kind of night the room is good at and it will be the best dinner your group has had; fight it and you have rented a beautiful argument.
Dates, capacity, and the inquiry form are on the private dining page. Tell us the occasion in one honest sentence; it changes what we cook.
Hungry now? The board is chalked at 4.