How much food per person for a Christmas cocktail party?

Count by the hour, not by the headcount

The useful question is not how many people are coming but how long they will stay, and whether they will have dinner afterwards. Guests eat most at the start of a reception; after that, what keeps them in the room is a steady supply of pieces and a sweet finish. A party that runs into the evening without enough food empties early.

That is why the festive range is built on duration. End-of-year drinks last about an hour and serve 11 pieces per guest. The Christmas cocktail reception lasts about two hours and serves 13. The end-of-year standing dinner covers three to four hours, the length of an evening that replaces dinner, with 18.

Past 8 pm, assume your reception is dinner. Guests who stay until 9 pm will not eat again before going home, and that is exactly the situation the 18-piece standing dinner is designed for.

Pieces per guest by duration

The counts below include the sweet pieces, which are part of the quantity rather than an extra: a reception that ends without anything sweet feels cut short.

The New Year reception in January sits between the first two formats, with 12 pieces per guest (8 savoury, 4 sweet), at €13.50 per guest for 50.

What the pieces are

The one-hour drinks bring seven savoury pieces: a gingerbread toast with duck foie gras and onion chutney, a smoked salmon blini with dill cream, a cheese puff, a goat's cheese, fig and walnut toast, matured Comté cubes with walnuts, a cherry tomato and mozzarella skewer with basil, and a chicken, cream cheese and chive roll. The four sweet pieces are a mini Christmas log, a macaron, a chocolate truffle and a cinnamon Christmas biscuit.

The two-hour cocktail reception adds a prawn on a skewer with cocktail sauce and a hummus and crunchy vegetable verrine, and swaps the biscuit for a mini éclair. The standing dinner adds what turns pieces into a meal: a smoked salmon wrap, a taramasalata toast, a mini sandwich with roast poultry and cranberry, a spoon of herb tabbouleh and, among the sweets, a lemon tartlet.

The sweet share

Four sweet pieces out of 11 for one hour, 4 out of 13 for two hours, 5 out of 18 for the evening. The share is highest in the short format: one-hour drinks before the holidays is as much about the mini Christmas log and the chocolate truffle as about the savoury pieces.

Keep the sweet pieces for the second half of the reception. Brought out after the speech, they give the evening a second moment instead of signalling the end.

Drinks: what is included and what to add

Water and juice are included in the end-of-year drinks, the Christmas cocktail reception and the standing dinner. Everything else is added per guest, so the drinks follow the headcount like the food: white and red wine at €8.90, crémant at €8.90, a glass of champagne at €9.90, soft drinks at €3.

For a December toast, one sparkling option is enough: crémant or champagne, rarely both. Add soft drinks when part of the team does not drink alcohol, and the cooling package at €69 per 50 guests if the room has no fridge.

Adjusting the quantities to your team

Order on the confirmed headcount. The pieces per guest are already counted in the menu, and ordering for absent colleagues only adds leftovers. If the evening is likely to run late, move up a format rather than adding guests who will not come.

Give the number of vegetarian guests when ordering: their pieces are replaced with vegetarian ones. Allergens are listed on each product page.

Replies keep arriving until the last week, and that is fine: you order online in a few minutes, and the headcount, the pieces and the options stay adjustable up to 72 hours before delivery.

Budget by headcount

Each format is ordered for your exact headcount, at the same price per guest whatever the size. The table gives totals for the smallest drinks order and a few common headcounts, water and juice included, with delivery included across Île-de-France and a €90 supplement in Seine-et-Marne.

The minimum order is €300 per delivery. The notice is 24 hours, 48 hours from 100 guests, counted up to the start of the delivery slot.