While scrolling Instagram a few years ago, I discovered Charlene Luo’s supper club, the baodega, a dinner party she runs out of her Bed-Stuy 2-bedroom apartment.
I was immediately curious, clicking through her posts featuring homemade Sichuanese dishes and the painstaking process of making them from scratch. In other photos, she shows a long dinner table, crowded with guests sharing different bottles of wine.
Luo was clearly a skilled home chef, but at $110 a pop, I couldn’t justify spending that kind of money to eat in someone’s apartment with strangers. Even if it was a 9-course meal. Or could I?
For years, the novelty intrigued me — and on a recent Saturday, I finally took the plunge and tried it.
The dinner
I arrived a few minutes before the start time of 7 p.m., and saw a few guests hanging out in the living room, chatting while sipping wine they’d brought. Most guests appeared to be in their 20s and 30s, and there were two college students who’d brought milk and juice, because they were under 21.
Most guests came in pairs; I was the only solo diner. Most seemed to be there out of a love for Sichuanese cuisine and had, like me, discovered the club online.
Charlene Luo in her Bed-Stuy kitchen.
Rose Marina Boubion / Gothamist
Luo was still cooking in the kitchen while her roommate, Anh Nguyen, dashed between the rooms, greeting us and helping Luo plate.
Before dinner, Luo took us up to her rooftop for a garden tour. There, she showed us chilis, fall remnants of tomato plants, and beans – all ingredients she’d used in our supper that evening.
Then we headed downstairs to the apartment and were ushered to a long table with 10 settings.
I chose a seat at the end, between a graphic designer in her 20s, and a woman who was in town from Singapore to visit friends.
For our first course, Luo dished out bowls of a savory but light pork rib soup. Every course after the soup was served family style, with Luo setting large platters on each end of the table for everyone to share.
Charlene Luo, right, and Anh Nguyen in the kitchen before a baodega dinner.
Rose Marina Boubion / Gothamist
We had “rooftop sausage,” so named because Luo cures it herself on her rooftop during the coldest winter months; eggplant and egg dip; steamed beef with toasted rice; cured pork belly; chili braised whole bass; mapo tofu; and chicken gizzards with chilies. Dessert was homemade chrysanthemum soy milk with grass jelly.
For each dish, Luo gave a short speech detailing everything about it — sharing anecdotes about eating it growing up, histories about its origins in China and her own process of cooking it.
Luo grew up in Maple Grove, Minnesota, before moving to New York for college. She spent years cooking informally for her family as a child, then hosting dinner parties for her friends as an adult. While working as a data scientist during the pandemic, she began moonlighting as a line chef at restaurants in order to learn professional kitchen skills.
This work has been her full time job for a year, running supper clubs with catering and pop-up gigs she books on the side. She said the supper clubs are “a nice way for guests to feel at home in a place that isn’t necessarily their home.”
A menu at recent baodega.
Photo by Rose Marina Boubion for Gothamist
Ultimately, she hopes to continue cooking and working with food as long as she’s physically capable, excited about it and “while I’m living in New York where other people are excited about it.” She keeps a list of things she’d like to do in the future for the baodega, including selling merchandise, recipe writing, and collaborating with restaurants and local shops.
The vibes
I wouldn’t say this dinner is an introvert’s nightmare, but be prepared to be cozy with strangers in a way you might have never experienced. You’ll be sharing communal dishes, serving each other the wine you brought, and engaging in a big dinner discussion – or maybe you’ll split off to have side conversations with your nearest neighbor.
In my case, I went alone and I found it very intimate and eye-opening to learn just how much work went into each dish, mentally making comparisons to the labor needed to serve a similar dish in a restaurant. The food was delicious, and I heaped multiple servings of chicken gizzards fried with chilis upon my plate, despite having never once thought about eating a gizzard before.
Michelle Chia, one of the women I sat next to, said that she was drawn to the dinner’s intimate setting, despite being “daunted” as an introvert.
“I’m just pleasantly surprised by the company,” Chia said over our dessert. “Just sitting down with a bunch of strangers is an experience in itself.”
Another guest, Jeffrey Chu, had flown in from Toronto just for the dinner. He works in the hospitality industry and was hoping to get inspiration from Luo’s event to launch a supper club of his own.
He liked that the evening was a much about the food as the company.
“Rather than being a fully food focused event, there’s a big personal component and touch,” he said. “It’s like half social, half dinner.”
What to know before you go
Arrive on time: Arriving on time meant more time to mingle with other guests for a few minutes before sitting down for the meal. It also meant we had time to see Luo’s garden tour before dinner.
Plan ahead: Luo announces these dinners on Instagram via @thebaodega, where they typically sell out within 2 weeks. Suppers are capped at 10 diners, and each person can only buy three tickets, to ensure a mix of strangers. Solo diners are encouraged.
Leave yourself several hours: Our dinner lasted almost four hours. We spent more than an hour at dessert just talking and firing questions at Luo about her experiences as a chef and asking her about her life. If you want to leave early, it might feel a little awkward.
Don’t think of it as a restaurant: The supper club can’t accommodate allergies or dietary restrictions, but Luo says she can create custom menus for catered events. And while you won’t be forced to eat everything on the table, you’d be missing out if you don’t at least try everything once. Keep in mind that you’re eating in someone’s home as well. Luo’s apartment is a shoes off home, and while I didn’t find it strange, I know some people might skip a beat. (Or want to bring slippers– which one guest actually did.)
Overall, I enjoyed the experience and would even attend again to try a different seasonal menu.
Tickets to the next Baodega supper clubs on Dec. 20 and 21 are now available online.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
