“It’s not a dinner party; it’s just dinner,” my friend Lizzie told me the other week, when I asked her what she wanted me to bring that evening. Kettle Chips would cover starters; Häagen Dazs would be dessert, she said. The most important thing was spending time with the people she loved.

‘Just dinner’ is what my mum made the other week for her girlfriends. “I thought about doing something fancy from Ottolenghi,” she said, “but then I thought – everyone loves lasagne”. She prepped it in the afternoon, and come dinner time, she dished it up and relaxed with her pals. It was, she told me the following morning, one of the most enjoyable dinner parties she’s ever had.

Back in the 80s, 90s and even early 00s, the idea of serving lasagne and garlic bread to your guests on a Saturday evening would have been unthinkable. Yet Lizzie and my mum are in very good company. Only a few months ago, the Domestic Goddess herself revealed that she’d fallen “out of the habit” of throwing formal dinner parties, in an interview with The Times.

“I recently served Twiglets as a starter,” Nigella told the reporter, with pride. Faffy prep is a no unless she’s in the mood, continued the article, and in general, she favours a buffet-style serve, and then for people to eat together on a long table. Inevitably, her confession prompted a flurry of think pieces and radio features asking whether Nigella had signalled the death dinner party. Yet in reality, and even among those who would consider themselves foodies, the three-course, formal approach to entertaining has been on the wane for some time.

“Come over for Kettle Chips on the sofa”: is the dinner party dead?