Chef hosts supper club for London’s sex workers with ‘candles in each room’

Chef Paris Rosina is hosting monthly dinners for sex workers, as an ‘ally’ aiming to combat the stigma and shame of sex work

Rose petals scattered along the front path are just part of the monthly treat in store for London’s sex workers, prepared by a chef determined to show them a warm welcome, reports the Financial Times.

Candles in every room and a tray of mismatched glassware on a velvet pillow also help her diners “feel romanced”, says Paris Rosina. “I do it as an ally,” she told the newspaper. By holding these events she aims to help combat the stigma and shame of sex work and show that it can be a choice over which her guests have agency.

Her ongoing series of dinners is called “Come To My House, I’ll Make You Fat”. She holds two editions of her supper club (tickets from £80) each month, with one exclusively for sex workers.

Unlike most dinner parties, she explains, the evenings stand out because nobody asks: “What do you do?”

“This space is just about having a nice time,” she told the Financial Times. “It’s a closed safe space – you can talk, relax and meet up with people. It’s something nice to do.” Cheaper tickets (£40) are available, and all Rosina’s paid assistants are from the community.

“There’s so much emphasis on survival in our community, which is understandable because it’s not always an easy path in life,” says one guest, who has been a sex worker for four years and now works in advocacy.

“But Paris’s supper club is a glittery space that allows for the more fantastical elements of our community to shine through.”

Another said: “As a sex worker, having a seat at the table can have many meanings. At Paris’s, we have a table of our own.”

The conversation is energetic. “You can hear them from downstairs when it’s a sex workers’ night because they’re all talking,” says Rosina. “Nobody is shy.”

Rosina told the newspaper that she started cooking professionally when she left school, working at London bakery Dusty Knuckle before launching her first pop-up event, “Let Me Fill You Up”, in 2021.

She launched her supper-club series in west London in 2023.

“I never liked school and resisted going from a young age,” says Rosina, who grew up in Essex before moving to London in 2010. Playing truant, she would “sneak home and watch cooking shows: Keith Floyd, Two Fat Ladies, Gary Rhodes with his spiky hair, Delia Smith, and, of course, Nigella”.

Rosina would like to expand her supper clubs to Paris and New York but has no plans for a permanent space. She is instead seeking a “small-ish hotel – not in London – that will be filled with all my crockery, props and glassware”.

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