Cherisse Moe

Crispy turkey and goat cheese em­panadas, a touch of pi­men­to caviar, and the rich deca­dence of ox­tail mac and cheese cro­quettes of­fered me­dia guests a first taste of what is to come when Dîn­er en Blanc re­turns to Port-of-Spain on No­vem­ber 14.

Per­haps fit­ting­ly, the St Clair res­i­dence of French Am­bas­sador Guil­laume Pierre pro­vid­ed an ide­al set­ting for the an­nounce­ment that Free­bird Restau­rant has been se­lect­ed as the of­fi­cial culi­nary part­ner for this year’s all-white af­fair.

Op­er­a­tions man­ag­er Rhenard Cal­len­der gave a glimpse in­to what din­ers can an­tic­i­pate dur­ing the event’s of­fi­cial me­dia launch on Mon­day. “A mod­ern in­ter­pre­ta­tion of clas­si­cal French dish­es,” he said, “in­fused with Caribbean flavours cre­at­ing unique and un­ex­pect­ed flavour pro­files.”

The spread in­clud­ed a turmer­ic dou­bles donut served with cur­ried chan­na mash, man­go chut­ney, tamarind gel, and co­conut am­char, along­side a lamb shep­herd’s pie ac­cent­ed with car­rot top sal­sa verde and a parme­san crisp. Al­so served were Pe­ru­vian ce­viche fea­tur­ing grouper, lob­ster, shrimp, and oc­to­pus in pas­sion fruit juice with green fig chips, and a bird pep­per and beet-cured snook with co­conut leche de ti­gre that tast­ed just as good as it looked. The drinks were re­fresh­ing too, a cock­tail of mixed berry iced tea, tamarind, lemon­grass, man­go, and mint fill­ing glass­es all evening.

“We’re ho­n­oured to be bring­ing our culi­nary touch to such a beau­ti­ful cel­e­bra­tion of food, style and com­mu­ni­ty,” Cal­len­der told Guardian Me­dia in a sub­se­quent in­ter­view.

Dur­ing the launch, Am­bas­sador Pierre ex­pressed his de­light at wel­com­ing or­gan­is­ers, part­ners, and me­dia to his res­i­dence, shar­ing that this year marks his in­tro­duc­tion to the tra­di­tion in the cap­i­tal. “This will be my first time sit­ting at the ta­ble. I am very ex­cit­ed. I know the food will be good, and it is some­thing I am re­al­ly look­ing for­ward to,” he said, adding that the oc­ca­sion al­so high­lights the “beau­ti­ful con­nec­tion” be­tween the French her­itage of Dîn­er en Blanc and the cul­ture, cre­ativ­i­ty, and char­ac­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Event host Mea­gan Mon­segue spoke about her years at­tend­ing, which be­gan lo­cal­ly in 2016 as a Ta­ble Leader—a decade-long jour­ney that has evolved in­to her role as host and fran­chise own­er along­side co-host Nigel Roach. She de­scribed the edi­tion—themed Une Soirée Parisi­enne: La Belle Époque—as both a new chap­ter and a home­com­ing cel­e­brat­ing artis­tic ex­pres­sion, el­e­gance, and the French con­cept of art de vivre.

“The lo­ca­tion re­mains a se­cret un­til the fi­nal mo­ment—which, in Trinidad, where every­body knows some­body who knows some­body, is no small achieve­ment,” she said. “We are not at­tempt­ing to recre­ate Paris in Trinidad. We are invit­ing Paris and Port-of-Spain in­to con­ver­sa­tion—bring­ing French el­e­gance and tra­di­tion to­geth­er with our own warmth, cre­ativ­i­ty, rhythm, hos­pi­tal­i­ty, and cul­tur­al rich­ness.”

When Guardian Me­dia asked Roach, an en­tre­pre­neur and event man­ag­er, whether Dîn­er en Blanc was a “stush”, ex­clu­sive af­fair, he dis­pelled any no­tion that it is over­ly re­served. “It is not a stush af­fair,” he ex­plained, en­cour­ag­ing pa­trons to bring their au­then­tic en­er­gy and style. He urged guests to “bring the dra­ma through fash­ion, ta­ble decor, and pres­ence” to cre­ate an at­mos­phere where net­work­ing, fash­ion, and com­mu­ni­ty meet un­der the stars.

Bring­ing the launch to a fes­tive close, Mon­segue in­vit­ed at­ten­dees to par­tic­i­pate in the event’s sig­na­ture rit­u­al. “And now, rather than sim­ply speak­ing about the ex­pe­ri­ence, we would like to cre­ate our first Dîn­er en Blanc mo­ment to­geth­er,” she said, prompt­ing guests to raise their white nap­kins high be­fore shar­ing a toast.

Dîn­er en Blanc built its world­wide rep­u­ta­tion on a tried-and-true for­mu­la: se­cret lo­ca­tions, head-to-toe pris­tine at­tire, and shared cus­toms. Guests them­selves shape the night’s at­mos­phere—wav­ing white cloth nap­kins to sig­nal the start of din­ner, light­ing sparklers as dark­ness falls, and leav­ing the venue spot­less be­fore de­part­ing.

First launched in Paris in 1988 by François Pasquier, the glob­al phe­nom­e­non now spans over 120 cities across 40 coun­tries, gath­er­ing thou­sands in icon­ic pub­lic spaces for an out­door din­ner par­ty. With the venue kept strict­ly un­der wraps un­til the fi­nal mo­ment, the count­down is of­fi­cial­ly on—so as­sem­ble your finest en­sem­ble, gath­er your friends, and pre­pare to in­dulge in the gas­tro­nom­ic ad­ven­ture that is Dîn­er en Blanc Port-of-Spain.