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Magazine

The ‘new’ Washington dinner party

By DeNeen Brown,June 07, 2012

View Photo Gallery - :There may be fewer formal Georgetown sit-downs full of big names, and the…

“You know,” a doyenne of the Washington dinner party scene tells you, “this is a very dangerous story you are working on.”

“This is just not something people want to talk about,” a well-known host says.

“If you put my name in there,” a socialite tells you, “I will get [your editor] to kill you.” She smiles, sitting in the parlor of her lovely home. Then she rises, as powerful people often do when the conversation has ended but you do not know it, and you are cordially escorted to a grand door. You notice the maid, who announced your arrival, watching your departure.

You hurry in your conservative pumps down the broken brick sidewalk, perplexed. All you wanted was to find out what has replaced the legendary Washington dinner party — the fabled institution that rose to fame with the arrival of the glamorous Kennedys. The kind of party where a “real Washington hostess” with a champagne voice reigned supreme over guest lists, hoping that history might be made in her dining room. The kind of party that journalist Sally Quinn, known for her own glamorous dinners, declared dead in a 1987 article in this very Magazine. “The Party’s Over,” the headline read.

If that dinner party has been dead for a quarter-century, what are the hallmarks of today’s Washington dinner party? It seems like a simple question, but getting people to RSVP to a request for an interview about the current dinner party scene is proving almost as elusive as getting an invitation to attend one. In fact, those in the know try to convince you that a “real Washington hostess” would never deign to talk to you. “Everybody is a little guarded around Washington,” says one host.

But people used to want to talk about the Washington dinner party: Who was there? Who whispered what to whom? Was that his mistress or his wife? Which enemies were served from the same plate? What political deals were brokered? Which literary giants literally duked it out?

That era was defined by the generation of hostesses who made it famous, and “all the people are gone,” laments one former hostess. “Evangeline Bruce, ... Mrs. Pamela Harriman, Mrs. Katharine Graham. They had the most incredibly elegant dinner parties. Five courses. Oh, my. All that is gone. Nobody has the time now. They don’t have time to prepare that elaborate dinner or sit through it.” And guests, she says, “are all about business. They look at their watches and go home at 9.”

The bitter split in Washington politics has sliced into dinner, too. “Nobody has manners anymore,” one hostess says. And even if politicians were inclined to mingle, Congress’s maddening never-ending campaign cycle has made it difficult.

“The fundraising machine is sucking the opportunity out of more social action,” says Tammy Haddad, chief executive of Haddad Media production company, who throws an annual garden brunch attended by politicians, business people and celebrities. “The traditional salon dinner has definitely given way to . . . fundraisers and restaurant parties.”

Another factor spoiling dinner: a White House administration that seems to not like to party. The Obamas rarely attend Washington dinner parties beyond their own circle of friends. “The president and folks have famously said they are not in town to go to Washington dinner parties,” Haddad says.

“Everything starts from the top,” another hostess says. “When Reagan was president, they were extremely social. It spilled over into the community at large. And the Clintons, a lot was happening then. And dramatically less so with George W. And probably Obama has followed suit.”

“It’s a different time and different era,” another hostess says. “That world is gone. It is just like Downton Abbey.”

Yet, you know there must be people who still orchestrate Washington dinner parties — and, finally, you find some folks to talk about that. You learn that a new generation of hosts and hostesses has risen to fill the void left by the grande dames. Names that often come up, in addition to those interviewed in this story, include: columnist George F. Will; senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett; Washington Mystics president Sheila Johnson; physician Sharon Malone, wife of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder; Rima al-Sabah, the wife of the Kuwaiti ambassador, Salem al-Sabah; philanthropist Adrienne Arsht; Debbie Dingell, Democratic power broker and wife of U.S. Rep. John Dingell (Mich.); Marlene Malek, president of Friends of Cancer Research and wife of Republican presidential adviser Fred Malek; lobbyist Abigail Blunt, wife of U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.); Kennedy Center honorary trustee Buffy Cafritz; lobbyists Heather and Tony Podesta; and the ambassadorial couples from the United Arab Emirates, Britain, Italy and France.