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HOW TO PLAY

STORY

Host a six course dinner party with your favorite surrealist artists and writers! Seat your guests, give them the food and the company they want, and send them home happy. That’s easier said than done, though, because these surrealists are quirky characters, and each one has different appetites to appease!

GOAL AND GAME END

Each guest has different appetites shown on the left of their card. Your goal is to fill as many of your guests’ appetites as you can with matching tokens. When your guests are sent home from the dinner party, all of their matched tokens are collected in your Stash, and the player with the most tokens in their Stash at the end of the game wins!

Each of the six courses in the meal makes different tokens available to your guests; once those tokens are gone, the next course begins. When the final course (the Dessert Course) is over, all remaining guests are sent home from the dinner party and the game ends.

Play Modes

Casual: for a quick easy game, ignore guest abilities

Normal: use abilities, but do not use Faux Pas cards

Advanced: use Faux Pas and Drafting

At the end of the game, the player with the most tokens in their Stash wins!

COMPONENTS

Guests (30)

Turn Overview/Menu (1)

The Platter (1)

Faux Pas (10)
(Advanced Mode)

TOKENS

Food

Wine

Dessert

Compliment

Drama

3s and 5s

GAME SETUP

  1. Put the Platter in the center of the table.
  2. Put all tokens aside to form the kitchen.
  3. Check the Menu and put Wine tokens on the Platter for the Cocktails Course based on the number of players:
2 Players
3 Players
4 Players
Cocktails
3
4
6
  1. Shuffle and deal 6 guests to each player to form their hand (you can look at your own but not at others’).
  2. Set out the Menu & Turn Overview.
  3. Return unused guests to the box.
  4. The player who has most recently eaten goes first, and turns continue clockwise.

YOUR TURN OVERVIEW

Starting with the first player and continuing clockwise, players take turns. On your turn, you choose and take ONE of the following four actions:

Play a Guest

Send one of your guests home, and/or Seat a guest from your hand to the table

*on your first turn you must seat a guest

– Or –

Give Compliments or Start Drama

Make one of your guests and their neighbor send each other Compliment or Drama tokens

– Or –

Serve a Guest

Send a token from the Platter to one of your guests

– Or –

Use Plate Abilities

Once per course: use any or all of your guests’ abilities with the Plate icon

PLAY A GUEST

Seat a guest from your hand to the table

Do one or both of the following things:

Seat a Guest

Choose a guest from your hand and place them in front of you on the table. You can place the guest to the left, right, or in between any of your other seated guests. You can have up to 3 guests seated at once.

On your first turn, you must seat a guest. Don’t worry about sending a guest home until later.

Send a Guest Home

You usually send a guest home later in the game, when you need to make room for a new guest. Before seating a guest, you may return one of your guests from the table to the box, and stash their matched tokens

Sending Guests Home

Guests can be sent home in several ways:

  • You may do so as part of the ‘Play a Guest’ action
  • All remaining guests are automatically sent home at the end of the game

Whenever one of your guests is sent home, each of the tokens on their card that matches its appetite is placed in your Stash. Tokens that do not match their appetites are returned to the Kitchen. Then return the guest card to the box.

These appetites are wilds. Any token placed on it counts as a match.

Perfectly Content

When you send a guest home, if every one of their appetites has a matched token, your guest is Perfectly Content. Choose any 2 tokens from the Kitchen and add them to your Stash (be strategic if you’re playing with Faux Pas cards).

GIVE COMPLIMENTS OR START DRAMA

Your guest and a neighbor get compliments or drama

Neighbors

Each guest always has 2 neighbors: the guest to their left and the guest to their right. Both neighbors can be your guests, but guests can often have an opponent’s guest as one of their neighbors.

Choose one of your guests with an available appetite and have them Give Compliments or Start Drama with one of their neighbors. If Giving Compliments, both your guest and the chosen neighbor receive a Compliment from the kitchen. If Starting Drama, both guests receive a drama from the kitchen.

You can use this to send an opponent’s guest an unwanted token if they are a neighbor of one of your guests!

1. Choose one of your guests and one of their neighbors

2. Send them both a Compliment (or both a Drama)

Receiving Tokens

Guests receive tokens from:

  • ‘Give Compliments or Start Drama’ action
  • ‘Serve a Guest’ action (taking tokens from the Platter)
  • Guest abilities (more on this later)

Whenever one of your guests receives a token, you immediately choose which appetite that token is placed on. If you send an opponent’s guest a token, they choose where to place it. Once a token is placed, it can’t be moved.

When your guest receives an unwanted token, you must accept and place the token even if the token doesn’t match any of the guest’s available appetites; your opponents will try to make this happen. If a guest would receive a token but all of their appetites already have tokens, that token is trashed (returned to the Kitchen).

To help everyone tell which tokens match the color of their appetites, if your token is matched, place the token design-side up. Otherwise place the token design-side down.

SERVE A GUEST

Give a token from the Platter to one of your guests

Take a token from the Platter and send it to one of your guests! Place the token on one of your guests’ appetites—tasty! Or trash (return to the Kitchen) a token from the Platter.

If you take the last token from the Platter, then the course is over!
See ‘Ending the Course’

USE PLATE ABILITIES

Once per course: use ALL your guests’ plate abilities

Each guest has an ability that lets them help themselves or bother their neighbors. There are 3 types:

  1. Plate Abilities can be used for your turn.
  2. Door Abilities are used when the guest is sent home.
  3. Special Abilities (no icon) are used at specific times.

For a casual dinner, you may choose to play without using any abilities

If a guest has the Plate icon in their bottom left corner, they have a Plate Ability. Once per course you may follow the instructions of ANY OR ALL of your guests’ Plate Abilities on the same turn.

You choose the order in which to use your guests’ Plate Abilities.

Example: Sophie chooses to ‘Use Plate Abilities’ for her turn. First she uses Dora Maar’s ability to send Kay Sage a Dessert from the Kitchen. Then Sophie uses Kay Sage’s ability and sends Sage 2 tokens from the Platter. Sophie can’t choose to ‘Use Plate Abilities’ again until the Platter is empty and the next course begins.

Door Abilities and Special Abilities

Door Abilities and Special Abilities happen when you do specific things, and do not take up your turn.

Guests with the Door icon in their bottom corner have abilities that happen when they are sent home, after stashing their matched tokens.

Guests with no icon in their bottom corner have Special Abilities that happen at specific times, as explained on the card. Be sure to read all of your guests’ abilities!

All abilities are optional. You never have to use an ability if you don’t want to.

Notes

  • Some abilities make you compare the tokens in your Stash (from guests’ you’ve sent home) with tokens in your opponents’ Stashes, rewarding you if you have more of those tokens than anyone else.
  • Some abilities instruct you to “Swap” tokens between guests. When swapping tokens, you can also change the placement of the new token.

ENDING THE COURSE

When a player takes the last token from the Platter, the course is over at the end of their turn!

Check the Menu (below) and put the tokens for the next course onto the Platter from the kitchen:

 

2 Players
3 Players
4 Players
Cocktails
3
4
6
Hors D’Oeuvres
4
6
8
Aperitifs
3
4
6
Main Course
7
10
13
Digestifs
2
2
3
3
4
4
Dessert
3
4
5

 

After refilling the Platter, the game continues with the next player’s turn.

END OF THE GAME

The game is over when a player takes the last token from the Platter during the Dessert Course. Do the following:

  1. Send your guests home (stashing matched tokens).
  2. Choose Perfectly Content bonus tokens, concealing them in your hand. Reveal them once everyone has chosen.
  3. Use the Door abilities on the guests you sent home.
  4. Count up the tokens in your Stash. The most tokens wins!
  5. (Advanced Mode) Claim remaining Faux Pas cards.

ADVANCED MODES

After your first few games, add these advanced rules:

Faux Pas

During setup deal each player 2 Faux Pas cards, then:

  1. Review your guests then pick 1/both of your Faux Pas cards
  2. Put the card(s) you picked face up beside the Platter
  3. Return any Faux Pas cards you didn’t pick to the box

 

You can claim any Faux Pas cards beside the Platter (some at the end of the game, others during the game) when you have certain tokens in your Stash. Faux Pas cards you claim increase your token total. If players are tied for a Faux Pas, they share it and both get the bonus.

Drafting

During setup, after dealing guests and Faux Pas cards:

  1. Look at your hand of guests & choose 1 to keep, placing it face down in front of you
  2. Pass your remaining 5 guests to the player on your left
  3. Take 5 guests from the player on your right
  4. Repeat until you have 6 guests face down
  5. Pick up your 6 face down guests and begin the game with these 6 guests as your hand.