Are your social skills honed to perfection, and is your prose as polished as your silverware? If so, you could be jetting off to report on four lavish dinner parties in China, Los Angeles, New York and Amsterdam this autumn, travelling business class, staying in four-star hotels, and having your expenses paid. You’ll also receive diningroom furnishings to the value of just over €22,000 on completion of the assignment.
British furniture and interiors company Timothy Oulton is looking for a "global dinner party critic", who will attend four sumptuous soirees on the company's behalf, with the possibility of further hosting and reporting duties. It's part of the company's quest to "revive the lost art of hosting" – and no doubt sell a few dining tables along the way in its shops, sorry "retail galleries", across the globe.
Each of the four dinner parties will have a different theme, from small and intimate to lavish banquet. The job will involve critiquing not just the food, but also the experience, from the welcome and atmosphere, to the staging of the interiors, the guests and the dinner table conversation. So just like an episode of Come Dine With Me, then.
The successful candidate, nothing as common as the winner, will be "an elegant wordsmith, an interiors aficionado, a cuisine connoisseur, a social media socialite and an experienced dinner party guest", according to Marcel Knobil, founder of luxury launches website VeryFirstTo, which is promoting the search for a social diarist.
The party kicks off on September 11th in Gaoming, South China, where the critic will attend a dinner for 100 guests, hosted by Tim Oulton, founder and creative director, at the company's creative hub and showroom.
Los Angeles Athletic Club is the venue for another sparkling soiree on October 2nd. Then it’ll be time to stretch out in business class for a quick nip across the Atlantic for a dinner at the Timothy Oulton gallery in Amsterdam on October 8th. Back on board again in your comfy amenity kit slippers, you’ll raise a glass of champagne en route to New York, for an event at “a trendy urban hideaway” in Manhattan on October 22nd.
Sound like a nice way to spend the autumn? You've got until midnight, August 30th to get your application in to VeryFirstTo.com.
To be in with a chance, you’ll need “a passion for people and parties, regularly attending elegant dinner parties” and “be able to identify and judge excellent hosting skills”, among other qualities. The application process involves describing your perfect dinner party and saying why you’d be right for the role. You’ll also have to provide links to your social media activity.
The winner will be informed on September 4th and the decision made public on September 7th.
Other ‘dream’ jobs that hit the headlines:
SO YOU WANT TO BE A RESTAURANT REVIEWER: In 2012 Lindsay Anderson beat 1,507 applicants to become Tourism Richmond's 365 days of dining food blogger. The job involved eating at and reviewing a different restaurant in the city in British Columbia every day for a year. It came with a $50,000 salary, plus expenses – and gym membership. Rather than losing her appetite for the job, the following year, Anderson and her friend Dana VanVeller embarked on a Canadian coast-to-coast eating odyssey and started their blog,edibleroadtrip.com
SO YOU WANT TO BE AN ADVENTURER: In 2009, Ben Southall from the UK saw off the challenge from more than 35,000 applicants from more than 200 countries to become Tourism Queensland's "caretaker of the islands" and spend six months in a luxury villa on Hamilton Island. He went on to make a TV series and write a book, and is currently driving a Land Rover from Singapore to London with his wife and fellow adventurer Sophee. They're most recent dispatches are from India and you can track their progress at bestlifeintheworld.com/blog/latest/
