Kitchen suppers à la Nigella? Tray bake courtesy of Jamie? Forget it. The formal dining room is back and the Home and Lifestyle sector is about to change.

Says who? Elle Decoration, that’s who, and what they don’t know about home and lifestyle isn’t worth writing about. What it means of course is all those people who knocked down walls in favour of open plan layouts, kitchen islands and TV dinners will have to give the builders a bell, and here at Lucre PR our Home and Lifestyle experts think this is a good thing. Because there’s nothing like the return of the formal dining room for creating a sense of occasion to our eating habits.

The impact of such a seismic change in our lifestyles is most probably going to be felt in our consumer purchasing habits. Could this be the return of the ‘family china’ on the wedding gift list of the soon-to-be-betrothed? Will we be buying decanters again and passing the port?  Let’s face it, there’s no point heralding the return of the formal dining room without accepting what comes with it: formal dining.  Which means the return of the dinner party. Less throwing a few chicken thighs in a pan, more five courses and carving the Taj Mahal out of a goji berry.

We might even enter next year’s Masterchef.