Now in its 10th year, Design Appétit has become as much about the food as it is about interior design. The annual fundraiser pairs designers and chefs to create unforgettable dining environments and extraordinary culinary moments through tastings, curated menus and intimate dining experiences. Chefs share equal billing with designers, and the talent on display in these immersive installations has made this one of Oklahoma City’s most coveted tickets.
Joli Sanders was an interior designer before founding Focus on Home, a local nonprofit that supplies families in need with essential items to create comfortable, functional homes. Design Appétit supports the mission as a fundraiser. Ten years ago, she knew she wanted that fundraiser to bring in local designers to showcase the home’s emotional power. When she realized they needed to feed everyone, Sanders rejected the standard banquet dinner. Instead, she asked local chefs to cook intimate meals for eight to 10 guests inside each designer-created vignette. The answer was essentially: Absolutely.
Each year, event organizers choose a different theme and pair local chefs with designers. Once matched, the teams begin working together to figure out how food and environment can speak to each other. “One year, VanStavern Design Group did trees and kind of a forest setting with grass. They had these trees that ringed the area, and it was just kind of like an enchanted nook out of this little forest,” Sanders said. “And Kurt Fleischfresser made rabbit and all the vegetables. Everything just looked like you would show up and have this kind of woodsy meal in this setting.”
“This year, the theme is ‘In Full Spectrum: The Color of Home,’ so color is our theme,” Sanders said. Designers will work within a specific color, and menus will be built to match that vision.
For Fleischfresser, those constraints are part of the appeal.
“The designer component is fantastic,” he said. “There’s nothing more that a chef likes than to have a parameter to create within. That’s how you come up with new stuff.”
This year’s gala is Thursday, Oct 22. With the rooms set, the chefs will set to work to prepare intimate dinners for guests seated within the installations. Every guest can enjoy a cocktail hour and can explore all 20 design installations before dinner. The private designer dining tables are reserved exclusively for event sponsors, but guests don’t have to be sponsors to enjoy the handcrafted fare or the fun.
The Community Table sits in the middle of the exhibit hall, with tickets priced at $250 per person. Each participating chef prepares a few additional meals, which are served at the Community Table. “A lot of people at the Community Table last year were just like, ‘This was the best time,’ because everybody was passing plates and just having fun, just eating a lot of different things,” Sanders said.
When I asked Jonas Favela, Executive Chef at VAST, why he keeps coming back, he said, “It’s really the highlight of the year. It’s such a unique opportunity to be paired with a design team and then pair the food to the chosen theme.”
“I love that we’re doing a good thing, but also I do so many events that are not focused enough on the art of the chef,” said Fleischfresser. “With this event, of course, the best part is that we are helping the families, but there is also this camaraderie—between the chefs, between the designers. We get to be so creative, engage with a small group of people, and have ownership of the food.”
The money raised from these events powers the organization’s work, which has several layers. First, they work with partner agencies to identify families in need. Once a family is selected, the team at Focus on Home interviews them to assess their specific needs. They then create a furniture and decor package specifically for the family using donated items from their warehouse. Finally, staff and volunteers help with move-in day and all the finishing touches.
Sanders says the organization’s work isn’t simply about putting furniture into a house.
“At Focus on Home, we know the importance of home, of environments—what it does for your psyche, what it does for you getting up in the morning, what it does for your kids performing well at school, what it does for you going to work because you know your kids did have a good night’s sleep. There’s just so much around a home environment. It’s easy to think of it as furniture, but it’s so much more than furniture.”
Design Appétit turns that idea into a dinner: Designers create the place, chefs create the meal and people gather around a table to build happier homes and stronger families.
To learn more about Focus on Home or Design Appétit, visit focusonhome.org.
This article appears in Not Quite Bedlam.