Electricity cut-outs, forgotten knives, tables full of diners with food allergies, dislikes and religious observances. It's all par for the course at a Leuka dinner.
Luckily, though, none of these mini-disasters caused sense-of-humour failures in the ranks of the 20 leading chefs assembled at the Berkeley hotel in London's Knightsbridge two weeks ago. Normally the air would be blue with expletives, but this was different. The event is run to raise money for Hammersmith Hospital's specialist leukaemia centre, and the atmosphere was frighteningly cheerful.
The first Leuka dinner - Who's Cooking Dinner? - was held in 1999. It was the brainchild of New Zealand chef Peter Gordon, whose sister had suffered from acute myeloid leukaemia. Happily, she has now recovered, but Gordon is still heavily involved in organising the Berkley's annual fest, which raises funds by luring 200 diners to pay about £500 per head for the privilege of having a top-flight chef cook dinner for them.
Each table seated 10 and, following a draw at the start of the evening, they were assigned their own chef. At the end of the evening, 16 of the chefs agreed to auction themselves, offering to cook a dinner in their successful bidder's home in the next 12 months.
This year there were a couple of extra chefs too. Mark Edwards of Nobu, a stalwart of the dinners, who was unable to cook at the 2003 event, went for £16,000; and gourmand Sir Clement Freud, a guest on the night, raised £8,000 by promising to cook a meal in his own home for the successful bidder.
This year's dinner raised £320,000 (£202,000 from the auction) - bringing the total to more than £1.5m in four years. Not bad for a night's work.
Who Cooked in 2003?
Pascal Aussignac, Club Gascon
Rainer Becker, Zuma
Eric Chavot, the Capital
Sally Clark, Clarke's
Olivier Couillaud, La Trompette
Anthony Demetre, Putney Bridge Restaurant
Peter Gordon and Anna Hansen, the Providores
Matthew Harris, Bibendum
Angela Hartnett, Menu at the Connaught
Mark Hix, the Ivy
Philip Howard, the Square
Hywel Jones, Pharmacy
Giorgio Locatelli, Locanda Locatelli
Alberico Penati, Harry's Bar
Bruce Poole, Chez Bruce
Michel Roux Jnr, Le Gavroche
Tim Tolley, Vong
John Torode, Smith's of Smithfield
Andrew Turner, 1837 at Raffles Brown's hotel