Carla Hall’s Secret to Hosting a Gathering Everyone Will Remember

After decades of cooking on television—from Top Chef to The Chew—Carla Hall has seen enough dinner parties to know one thing: Most of us are making entertaining far more complicated than it needs to be..

The best hosts, she says, never try to impress their guests with an elaborate spread. Instead, they keep things simple enough that they can actually enjoy the party.

“It’s really about letting go,” Hall tells Good Housekeeping. “I really think people feel they’re going to be judged. People should just not feel obligated to make a whole bunch of stuff. Never apologize for just making things simple.”

It’s advice Hall follows herself. Even with friends coming over the very next day, she says she wasn’t planning to “chef it up.”

“I don’t have to jump through a lot of hoops,” she says. “I can just have simple things that I want to serve.”

That relaxed approach has two benefits: It makes hosting easier and it also helps guests feel more comfortable. Here’s how Hall creates gatherings people remember long after the last dish is cleared.

Stop trying to impress everyone

Hall thinks social media and cooking shows have unintentionally convinced people that every gathering needs to be a production.

“Doing one recipe is very different from entertaining,” she says. “People think they have to do a lot of different things, and they really don’t.”

In fact, one of the best dinner parties she’s ever attended featured a refreshingly unfussy menu: “It was a piece of fish. There were peas. There was a salad. There was a starch,” she recalls. “The food was so simple.”

Yet it’s still one of her favorite gatherings—not because of what was on the plate, but because of everything happening around it.

“The conversations and the people—that was the thing that stood out,” Hall says. “That was the memory.”

Hall says that idea was reinforced while working with Milo’s Tea on its recent “Taste of Memory” white paper, which was developed with clinical psychologist Jenny Taitz. The research found that the summer moments people remember most often aren't extravagant celebrations—they’re the everyday gatherings shared around food and drinks. Hall says the findings confirmed what she'd already experienced throughout her career: It’s the company, not the complexity of the menu, that sticks with people.

Make guests feel at home immediately

Forget elaborate welcome cocktails or perfectly timed appetizers.

When Hall walks into someone’s home, the quickest way to put her at ease is surprisingly simple: Let her help herself.

When the host says, “‘Hey, we’ve set up this little bar over here. Help yourself,’” she explains. “We have batch cocktails…it just takes the pressure off.”

A self-serve drink station instantly communicates that the evening isn’t overly orchestrated.

“It sets the tone for me that this is not precious,” Hall explains. “You feel like you’re at home.”

She takes the same approach in her own kitchen, setting up one side of her large island with drinks while soups, stews, or other easy, family-style dishes are served from the other.

Don’t make more food than you need

If there’s one thing Hall wishes more hosts would stop worrying about, it’s variety.

She sees people trying to juggle too many dishes at once when a single well-planned main course is often all you need.

“A soup can be done ahead. It is sitting on the stove,” she says. “I may have one protein that comes off the grill. It’s super simple.”

By keeping the menu focused, you’re not frantically trying to pull five dishes out of the oven at exactly the same time—which means you’re actually present when guests arrive.

Let people help

Many hosts automatically refuse when guests ask, “Can I do anything?”

Hall thinks that’s a mistake. “Everybody wants to help,” she says. “You don’t have to turn down help.”

The trick is deciding before guests arrive exactly how they’ll pitch in.

She suggests assigning simple jobs like putting flatware on the table, filling ice buckets, or clearing plates to a designated dish station after dinner.

Not only does it lighten the host’s workload, but it also helps guests settle in. “If you have plans, it’s less stressful,” Hall says.

Never make a brand-new recipe—unless that’s the whole point

What’s a hosting habit she’d ban forever?

“Making something new that you haven’t made before,” she says. Trying an unfamiliar recipe while secretly hoping it turns out perfectly is a recipe for unnecessary stress.

The exception? Make the experiment part of the invitation.

If you tell friends, “I’m testing a new recipe and need volunteers,” everyone walks in with the right expectations.

“You have given yourself permission from the get-go,” Hall says.

The best parties don’t need a special occasion

One of Hall’s biggest mindset shifts has been giving herself permission to entertain on ordinary days.

“I don’t wait for a holiday,” she says. “If I’m testing a recipe, that is my reason to have you over.”

She’ll text friends, spread the food out family-style, and play games. That’s enough.

“You don’t have to wait for a special occasion,” Hall says. “That takes the pressure off.” Because if Hall has learned anything from years of cooking—and countless dinner parties—it’s that guests rarely remember whether there were five side dishes or homemade pie.

They remember how you made them feel.

“When I think about the parties that I remember,” she says, “they’re super, super simple.”