The 2025 Oscars Dinner Party Recap: Act One
From Bob Dylan bar snacks to the infamous prawns from The Substance.
Last Sunday may have been the 97th Academy Awards, but the weekend before was an arguably bigger event: my 4th annual Oscars Dinner Party. Ten courses, each thematically tied to a Best Picture nominee (these are pairings, not puns!!), for two nights, serving ten guests each. It’s a culinary journey of the best movies of the year!1
Ideas can only get you so far: most of my time spent on this dinner had nothing to do with cooking, but rather with planning and designing a menu that was somewhat cohesive and could be smoothly executed in a residential space. I’ve been hosting big dinners fairly regularly, and this one in particular pushed the limits of a New York apartment kitchen. That was the main constraint, alongside a $97 ticket price that covered the costs of food, alcohol, and labor. I don’t have the benefit of wholesale pricing, but I don’t pay commercial rent and my friends were willing to work for cheap.
Service went really well, thanks to all that logistical and prep work that was done up front. Recipe tests started a month in advance, and the days leading up to this weekend were spent making fresh pasta, braising lamb shoulders, and simmering broth. The goal was for the seated dinner to be shorter than The Brutalist, and both nights we succeeded in this, even with an intermission.
The Menu
At first it was hard to be inspired by this year’s crop of Best Picture nominees. Ideas came much easier for last year’s dinner, perhaps because I liked those films a whole heck of a lot more, and that was such a fun time I thought it would be hard to top. But some brainstorming, with my friends and in the shower (not at the same time!!!), and I got to a ten-course menu that I could be proud of making. There were also a few substitutions to accommodate dietary restrictions; fortunately everyone was a meat eater, but I had options planned in case one of my dear vegetarian friends had decided to attend.
In addition to the food, Aaron and Byron, my resident oenophiles, picked wine pairings to go with nearly every dish, and those are spotlighted throughout these rundowns.
I also put together a cocktail menu with the help of some friends, which we served before and after the seated portion of the dinner. That whole guide is available here:
Special thanks to Lai Eng for taking the great photos you see below! Check out her work on her website or Instagram.
Now, let’s dive into everything I made for this Oscars themed dinner party!
Bar Snacks (A Complete Unknown)
Harissa hot honey roasted peanuts & za’atar spiced chickpeas.
Midway through A Complete Unknown, Bob (Timothée Chalamet) tells Sylvie (Elle Fanning) that he ran away from home to join the circus. One could dubiously link circus peanuts to that film, but that led my thoughts towards all those Manhattan dives and pubs where the folk singers of the film would convene. Some roasted, crunchy bar snacks were the perfect way to start off the night, where guests could casually munch while enjoying special Oscars-themed cocktails. Plus, a selection of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez songs were a good soundtrack to lead us into the dinner party2.
Both the roasted peanuts and chickpeas3 had an ample amount of seasonings, to keep things as spicy and zesty as Dylan himself. The za’atar spiced garbanzos were a reference to that other Best Picture nominee starring Timothée Chalamet.
Then, we got everyone settled at the table, gave our intro spiel, and toasted with my go-to cheap but good sparkling wine.
Maman’s Cheese Soufflé (I’m Still Here)
Gruyère and parmigiano.
When Rubens Paiva is whisked away by the secret police in I’m Still Here, he tells his wife Eunice that he’ll be back home in time for her famous soufflé. (Her soufflé making prowess is mentioned multiple times throughout the screenplay.) But he never returns, and that soufflé is never made.
Though we may be perilously close, we do not currently live in a 1970s Brazilian dictatorship, so I was able to make a savoury egg fluff. This was the dish I struggled with the most in testing: I couldn’t get the egg whites to stiff peaks with my stand mixer, and wouldn’t have the time on the day to work them by hand. Then I came across a recipe by Jacques Pépin’s mother, which dispensed with all that nonsense entirely and just beat the whole eggs into the béchamel. So I went with the rationalization that Eunice, a mother of five, wouldn’t have time to beat those egg whites, or that because she hadn’t written down her recipe, no one else could replicate her magic:
Although it lacked the dramatic pouff of a Julia Child soufflé, the combo of gruyère and parmigiano still made this a hit with my guests, a light course to ease our way into the heaviness that was to come.
Allergy Sub: Misto Quente
On Saturday, one of my guests had an egg allergy so obviously he couldn’t eat the soufflé. Some Googling led me to a misto quente, or grilled cheese with ham and mozzarella. Typically it’s served in a cruncy ciabatta-style roll or a panini press. Having neither, I smashed a sandwich in a waffle iron. These sandwiches were also made for family meal and oh man, they were delicious.
Sunday’s dinner had one guest who could not eat gluten, but this was easy to mitigate with gluten-free AP flour used in the béchamel.
Pelmeni and Red Caviar (Anora)
Siberian veal and pork dumplings, smetana, ikura, chives.
A mix of high and low, much like the Best Picture winning film that inspired this course. Pelmeni are Russian dumplings, typically homemade, but neither Vanya’s wealthy family or Ani would have made them on their own. So I purchased a couple bags from Netcost, an Eastern European supermarket in the same neighborhood where much of the film is shot. This also made this course dead simple to make: just toss boiled pelmeni in melted butter and champagne vinegar.
To serve, we smeared each plate with smetana (Russian sour cream) and dolloped ikura amongst the dumplings. The red color of the salmon roe matches with Ani’s red hair tinsel. (Sadly, we didn’t have the budget for sturgeon caviar.)
Wine pairing: Albariño "Xión", Bodegas y Viñedos Attis 2022 — the acidic bite complemented the salmon roe while strong enough to stand up to the meat-filled dumplings.
Allergy Sub: Gluten & Egg
The pelmeni dough used wheat flour and eggs, so the sub here was just a big pile of potato chips and an extra heaping of ikura.
Head-On Prawns (The Substance)
With paprika-dusted mayo and Dutch Crunch sourdough.
Anyone who’s seen The Substance will get this reference. I went to Aqua Best in Chinatown for a 4 lb. box of 20/30 head-on shrimp. They may be the best seafood market in the entire city.
The shrimp were cooked very simply, but with a French twist: sautéed in olive oil on a ripping-hot skillet then flambéed in cognac. We had to cook this in three batches, and each time we set off the one remaining smoke alarm near my kitchen, which I really ought to rip out. Garlic and red chile flakes add some flavor for the prawns, which were served alongside paprika-dusted mayo and my Dutch Crunch sourdough.
Guests, of course, were instructed to eat with their hands and to suck out the head juices.
Wine pairings: Ribolla Gialla, Ronchi di Cialla 2023 (Saturday — a light-bodied Northern Italian white) and Mas Gomà, Brisat Catalan 2023 (Sunday — a punchy Spanish orange)
And served with a round of our Substance Shooters… now the night is really getting started…
End of Act One. Continued below…
“best” according to the Academy, of course.
There was a synced playlist featuring music from all of the nominees that went with each course. This works great for some films (Anora and I’m Still Here) and less so for others (Dune and Conclave). For the latter I had a gag where I switched the music to blasphemous religious-themed pop, from the likes of Madonna and George Michael.
Follow the comments for those roasted chickpeas: cook dried chickpeas, lay them out on paper towel lined baking sheets and let them dry out for a few hours. Roast them and only after that, toss in a bowl with EVOO and spices