Diner en Blanc In NYC: Inside The World's Largest Secret Dinner Party

Bryant Park Atmosphere

Are you thinking of expanding it to other cities for next year? We created a structure which is called Diner en Blanc International. We deliver licenses around the world to people who want to organize this event in their city. But, they have to respect the rules. So we guide them and help them to build it. We have 40 cities for the second year and we have received 500 requests from all over the world this year.

That's the secret. We are completely different from other events, people really commit themselves to participate, they have to respect the rules, they have to work, and they have to bring back their garbage.

What is your favorite part of the night? 1) I think my favorite part of the night is when people arrive. They are amazed with the turn out. You can read it on their face. 2) The party. When people really enjoy the public place by living outside, just expressing their joie de vivre [translation: joy of life]. You can go in between the rows and see people sharing their food and their wine. That's the goal of the event, making friends. Where do you think you’ll go from here? What’s your plan when it keeps growing? I’m not going to tell you where it’s going to be next year, because I don’t know it. But for sure we have to respect the size of the venue and we don’t want to grow too fast. If we accept guests off of the waiting list, we could only go to Central Park and that’s not good because we'll be stuck in Central Park and there's no space bigger.