In Spring, 2025, Gio Luciano (@giovannis.kitchen) blew up for the frank, charming videos he’d make during his 15-minute breaks from the Bushwick line he cooks on.
Before service started, he’d memorialize everything from his sorry excuses for snacks, colorful family meals and deli-cup concoctions. Luciano’s eyebrow piercing, chefy charm and stained-white-tees immediately drew internet groupie love, leading to a feature in Addison Rae’s “Times Like These” video, a GQ interview and the privilege to host his own food pop-ups and DJ sets alike.
Luciano, though effortlessly easy-to-watch, isn’t the only Brooklyn line cook breaking through on social media.
In the age of shortform content, the internet can quickly become fixated on any old profession. From videos like “what I eat in a day as an OBGYN nurse” to “count my Friday night tips with me as a server at Texas Roadhouse,” the internet has increasingly grown interested in the lives of those in our communities, who we may interact with regularly, but lack all the details of.
When scrolling my own food following, I notice the familiar family meals, similar prep tasks and matching aprons between two cooks. Hayley Yates and Jamie Rothenberg (@lesbianfoodaccount and @foodjars, respectively) document their own culinary ventures via Instagram. Where Yates shows off her private chefing on a Substack filled with everything from recipes to restaurant recs to kitchen narratives, Rothenberg’s socials primarily plug her cake decoration commissions. Despite the differences in their social outputs and activities in their home kitchens, the two clock into a shared professional one each week as its own full-time gig: Dinner Party, or @dinnerpartybk.
Dinner Party opened in 2021 as the cozy, conceptual, culinary child of founder and executive chef, Cami Jetta. Jetta wanted to create community in her new neighborhood, so when she found herself walking by the same empty restaurant space on S. Portland, day after day, she felt her future calling. With a passion for history and philosophy, and scrappy skills cooking at a summer camp’s kitchen, Jetta made moves to open Dinner Party. With the help of some friends and family, her tight crew and quaint space began drawing young locals inside to dine communally, indulging in comforting American classics.
“It felt like a montage in a movie. Like I saw the space and knew I wanted to be there. And I could see all the pieces coming together before they did,” Jetta says.
Dinner Party will celebrate its fifth birthday this year and has greatly evolved since its inception. They moved to a newer, bigger space. It now sits snugly at the Clinton Hill corner of St. James and Dekalb, boasting a biweekly-rotating, prixe-fixe menu cultivated and cooked by a boisterous, diverse back of house crew who take turns thinking up their hyperseasonal specials. When one eats at Dinner Party, the options are simple: three courses if they’re curious and chill, or five if they’re freaky and feasty. There’s also the killer wine list, a crafty, herbaceous cocktail program and some a-la-carte add-ons for food.
Dinner Party’s dark, wooden interior and grandmotherly collages of framed photos on its walls invite diners to cozy up for the set menu they’ll soon indulge in. A long, communal table adorned with flower arrangements serves as the room’s centerpiece. Behind the bar, a gingham-shirted bartender shakes drinks. Everyone working the homely front of the house, provides cool, calm service.
Though the dinners delight, its back of house team, posted regularly on the restaurant’s Instagram page, is the beating heart of the experience. They’re all young women and queer people, each with an individual drive to learn about food while bringing their own unique interests to this kitchen.
Tess McNamara works the line and is Dinner Party’s head of pastry. She started cooking in college and stuck with it. “I’ve luckily never touched an office,” McNamara says. “I can’t imagine myself doing anything else.”
Hayley Yates left her corporate career to explore food. She represents the “365 Party Girl” archetype on the Dinner Party line, recommending I go to Basement after my meal. “I followed a passion,” she says. “And now I’m happy. It’s a recession proof career. I see people getting laid off from their 9-5s all the time.”
McNamara and Yates broke down the way Dinner Party’s kitchen functions towards the end of their Friday afternoon prep shift. “We work interchangeably on every station and shift. Shifts are split between prep and line,” Yates says. “I lead in a lot of pastry stuff,” McNamara says. “Sometimes there’s lighter loads for pastry, depending on the menu, which allows me to get into the savory side. I appreciate that about this kitchen. We all have our hands in everything.”
Though these shifts make for the bulk of their work week, many of them bounce between this kitchen and various side gigs.
“I’ve done cake commission work,” McNamara says. “Someone managing a photoshoot with Martha Stewart came in here and asked my coworker Julie and I to cater and serve cakes. It was so random” Yates says. “Line cook life can be rich in so many ways, except financially. Lots of us are willing to take on side gigs. My goal is to build a bigger brand with @lesbianfoodaccount on Instagram and Substack.”
Before Dinner Party, Rothenberg managed social media accounts for food media publications. Now, she has the internet intel to sustain her own account, posting photos of her cakes, frequently partnering with lifestyle and beauty brands to advertise their products via recipe videos. “I started doing brand outreach the same way I had at my corporate positions. I don’t have a manager or anything, it’s all just me. I negotiate my own rates,” Rothenberg says.
Social media plays a big part in promoting these cooks’ individual endeavors. It also is a key tool in the success of Dinner Party’s culinary identity. Julie Saha, Dinner Party’s Chef De Cuisine, runs their socials. “I wanted to take our pictures differently and change our font styles,” Saha tells PAPER. She had the skillset from her graphic design background and management of her own, personal food Insta, @foodbebo. “It’s been my portfolio for all my food jobs,” she adds. “Running the Dinner Party account is so fun. We take film and digi photos, our feed has a cohesive look, we show off our staff and their personalities.”
And while social media plays an integral role in some of the staff’s side hustles, others aren’t as savvy with or interested in the online world. Camille Oldani, who started at Dinner Party in October, worked to develop the bread and pastry program at Theodora, a Fort Green hotspot, and helped open Thea, its bakery.
“I’d like to learn to navigate social media better. I’ve made more connections through work in previous restaurants,” Oldani says. “But I see the way people make connections online and admire that.”For some, like Executive Sous Chef Oona Frauenfelder, social media is just a simple pleasure. “I don’t have any side gigs,” says Frauenfelder.” “But I have a lovely Instagram, filled with food.”
Nicole Williams, who bounces between positions in Dinner Party’s pastry program and front of house, ditched social media during the pandemic and still hasn’t looked back. She also works part-time as lead pastry at Little Egg, another Clinton Hill restaurant. “I was addicted to Instagram. COVID happened and I took it as my opportunity to disappear,” Williams tells me.
Though varied in their relationships to digital life, the Dinner Party BOH couldn’t be more tightly knit. They’ve seemingly been this way since its inception, with a core set of comfort-driven, women-led values becoming known amongst all who frequent the spot.
Cayle Montgomery found Dinner Party’s line through some Reddit research. They were looking for “Queer kitchens to work in” when the restaurant came up as a rec. “I went to culinary school then moved to the city to be immersed in art and food,” Montgomery says. When asked to describe their kitchen’s energy, the team’s answers were similar. “There’s a high sense of play,” admitted McNamara. “We literally play improv games,” Yates says. “It’s a circus,” Frauenfelder says. “Summer camp energy,” Oldani says. “I feel like I’m back on a playground,” Montgomery says. “It’s a microcosm of every TV show I watch,” Saha says.
This playfully creative and encouraging nature is reflected not only in the smiles that paint each cooks face as they recount memories from their time on the line; it becomes apparent in the menus they each get a hand at crafting. Pick-ups on the pass are never stale, prep tasks are never the same between weeks. The cooks rotate the responsibility of menu development for diners.
Rothenberg used her Italian-American insight to craft dishes inspired by her Long Island upbringing. “We had a ricotta toast with stewed, jammy tomatoes on top,” she says. “There was a steak with gremolata and spumoni for dessert.” Montgomery brought Caribbean food to Dinner Party for his first menu. Williams did Southern Missouri staples with a Californian twist.
“My mom’s macaroni and cheese recipe made my menu,” Williams tells PAPER. “I was serving a lot that week, and hearing people react to the dishes made me so happy.”
In all, it appears the future of Dinner Party is bright. Jetta plans to expand their a la carte menu options to cater to Clinton Hill’s diverse diners, while maintaining the mantras that’s helped them hit the 5-year mark. “We have plenty of regulars who come in for each new menu,” Jetta explains. “But part of becoming an institution is having dishes people come back craving.”
Yates and McNamara look forward to seeing fresh faces in the dining room. “We love the young Brooklynites who come in ready to go out afterwards,” Yates says. “But there’s something fun about seeing older people here,” McNamara expands. “There was like, a six-top of silver foxes here last week. I was like, ‘How did they find out about us?’”
Saha wants to keep creating new songs to help prep shifts pass by. Montgomery wants to grow their skills as the youngest cook at Dinner Party.“I know this place is good at making people the best they can be,” they say. “It makes me happy knowing that every time I come in to work.”
Photography by Andie Kirby
