From the founder

JANUARY 2026

Introducing a brand new series from Dinner Ladies: From the Founder - a monthly round up from Lily Cai sharing a glimpse behind the scenes of growing Dinner Ladies. Insightful and frank in equal measure, we're excited to share episode one:

Notoriously a quiet month for the Events industry, January brings an inevitable pause after a whirlwind end to the year. Quiet periods can feel unsettling in our industry, but framing is important. At Dinner Ladies we see this natural pause as deeply purposeful, and an opportunity to strengthen our foundations and set ourselves up for the year ahead. For us, January has been about focus, intention and recharging for the coming months.

We kicked off the year with wonderful news - I'm really proud to announce our B Corp certification, which highlights our commitments to building something that balances creativity, commercial success and responsibility. It's particularly rewarding to see we scored really highly in the community section for our ongoing work with our Sharing Plates initiative tackling both food poverty and food waste in London, something I know the team are immensely proud of.

Creatively, we’ve been super busy behind the scenes. We’re gearing up for the next edition of our signature showcase series, proudly held in partnership with Outernet London, where we’ll be exploring a fermentation-led theme, bold flavours, slow processes and a little experimentation. We’ve also been working on another exciting collaboration, and will be sharing news very soon about our fourth sole venue partnership - it's a venue we've long admired and absolutely cannot wait to start working in. More on that soon!

- Lily