Why Don’t You… Try The Art Supper Club
- Jez Farmer
- Aug 21
- 3 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Dinner, art and a room full of strangers who meditate and draw with you, while no one takes themselves too seriously. It shouldn't work. It absolutely does.
Hobby Republik went along to Art Supper Club's evening with local artist Jaiya Bhandari at The Breakfast Club on Stanhope Road. Here's what happened, and why we think it's one of the best nights out you can have in St Albans right now.
The Fear Of The Blank Page
Let's get this out of the way: we are not good artists. We said as much when we sat down, half-expecting to be the only ones admitting it. We weren't. A couple of others on our table said exactly the same thing before we'd even picked up a pencil.
That, it turns out, is the whole point. Jaiya was clear from the start that this wasn't about producing something gallery-worthy – it was a play session. No perfection required, no judgement, just permission to make a mess and see what happens.
Drawing With Added Mindfulness
The warm-up exercise set the tone for the entire evening. I won’t let the cat out of the bag and tell you exactly what happened, but if I just say that Jaiya has a few fabulous ways to help you see art in a different way. A playful way. A way in which you can produce the wonkiest, wronghanded drawings, and love them and share them with strangers without feeling the slightest embarrassment. But it was funny, properly laugh-out-loud funny, and within five minutes any self-consciousness about being “bad at art” had completely evaporated. Once that barrier was gone, everyone just relaxed into it.
From there we moved on to painting, flowers in fact, with Jaiya guiding us through some simple techniques without ever making it feel like a lesson. There was a further relaxation and mindfulness exercise partway through too, which sounds like an odd addition to an art class but made total sense in the moment: a chance to slow down, breathe, and reconnect with why we were actually enjoying this rather than overthinking it.
You can see some more of what we (and our tablemates) came up with on our supplier page for Art Supper Club.
Dinner With People You Just Met
Here's the clever bit. Dinner doesn't arrive until after the painting is done – so by the time the plates came out, everyone at our table already knew each other. The ice wasn't just broken, it had melted completely. What could easily have been an awkward “meal with strangers” situation turned into one of the most sociable dinners we've had in ages. We put the world to rights over food, swapped life stories and left with new friends, new ideas and of course, some new artwork.
That's the real trick of Art Supper Club: it uses the workshop as the icebreaker so the dinner afterwards actually works.
Should You Go?
Yes – whether you're going with a friend, on a date, or turning up solo. Especially if you turn up solo, actually, since the format is built to get a table of strangers talking. Every Art Supper Club evening is different – a different artist, a different creative technique, different food – so no two nights are ever quite the same. Ours happened to be flowers, playful doodles and a very good conversation about absolutely everything.
The details:
Price: From £70 per person
Duration: 3.5 hours (roughly 1.5 hours of workshop, then dinner)
Age: 18+
Numbers: Deliberately small and intimate – don't expect a big, anonymous crowd
Experience needed: None whatsoever. That's rather the point.
Book through hobbyrepublik.com, or get in touch with us directly if you'd like a steer on which upcoming evening to go for.
Have fun. Do good.
Jez and The Hobby Republik Team
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