Wednesday 30 September is two days away, and by six o'clock Greek canapés will be on their way along Poole Road from Romanzo's Taverna, straight to our door at No.82.
Stew Plumridge from Domes Resorts and Kim Sellman from Sovereign will be walking through that same door within minutes of each other.
What we like best right now is finally being close enough to talk about the practical bits instead of the invitation. There's something lovely about that, even when the practical bits are mostly tables and glassware.
The tables that need laying, the glasses that need polishing.
The menu is on its way from a kitchen up the road, and it'll still be warm when it gets here.
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The room, two days out
No.82 doesn't need much to become an evening room instead of a daytime one. A few tables move and the chairs come in from wherever they've been living that week, while the glassware that usually sits behind the counter gets pulled out and lined up.
It's a small space, the kind where you can hear the person across the table rather than lip-read them.
By Wednesday afternoon it'll be ready, doors propped and lights low, with the first bottles going into the fridge to chill. And then, for a few hours, it stops being the boutique you might have wandered past on a Tuesday and becomes the room a good few of you spend an evening in together.
We rather like that turn. It's one of our favourite parts of putting an evening like this together, and it's a particularly lovely one.
Nothing about it is dressed up beyond what it is. A boutique that plans holidays by day, and for one Wednesday in September, a room where you eat something good and drink something cold, in the company of two people who know a lot more about Greece than the average website does.
That's the whole idea, and we'd like to keep it exactly that simple.
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What's coming through the door
Danny at Romanzo's built this menu for us specifically, and there's a fair amount of it.
Mini chicken and lamb souvlaki, marinated and grilled until the edges char.
Keftedes, golden outside and soft in the middle, the kind you eat two of before you've decided you're hungry.
Halloumi comes warm, with honey and sesame, soft enough to pull apart with your fingers rather than a knife.
Then there's saganaki, loukanika straight off the same charcoal, and spanakopita wrapped tight in pastry that shatters the moment you bite it. Crisp pitta crostini follow, piled with houmous, feta and olives, a plate that empties itself while you're still talking to someone.
None of it arrives all at once.
It comes round the room in waves, so there's always something warm reaching you rather than a table you have to fight your way back to.
We haven't forgotten the sweet end of the table. Mini baklava, and kataifi soaked in honey, both worth saving a little room for.
A menu like this is a fair ask of any kitchen, and we're grateful Danny said yes to building it for us.
Canapés moving round the room from six o'clock until the last plate is empty.
'Canapés moving round the room from six o'clock until the last plate is empty.'
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What's in your glass
Unlimited prosecco, wine and beer, poured through the whole four hours.
We mean unlimited without any catch attached to it.
Nobody's counting your glasses, and nobody's going to hurry you towards the door at nine to make room for a later sitting. There isn't one.
That runs from six until ten, so there's no reason to arrive early and drink fast to catch the good part.
The good part is the whole evening.
We'll have somewhere cold to keep the prosecco and somewhere close by to keep pouring it, which is a small thing to plan for and a nuisance to fix halfway through an evening if it isn't sorted first.
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Stew and Kim, in the room with you
Stew works trade partnerships for Domes Resorts across South UK and Ireland, which means Wednesday is about as close as most of us get to asking a Domes person a question without a website in between.
Kim represents Sovereign, through Specialist Holidays Group.
She started as an apprentice and built her career from there, one placement at a time.
We think that's wonderful.
It's easy to talk about the trade from a job title. It's a different thing to have started as an apprentice and built a career from there, the way she did.
Both of them said yes to an evening in a small boutique on Poole Road, on the strength of an invitation and nothing more.
'Both of them said yes to an evening in a small boutique on Poole Road, on the strength of an invitation and nothing more.'
That's a lot to ask of two people, and they're doing it anyway.
We'd like to think that says something about the evening we've put together, and a little something about them too.
This isn't a pitch evening. There's no stage or slideshow, nobody stood at the front with a microphone. Two people who happen to know Greece better than most of us, standing in a room where you can walk up and ask them a question you'd never know how to put to a website.
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What we don't know, and won't pretend to
We can't tell you how many of the twenty-five pound tickets are left today.
We don't run a public counter, and we're not going to invent one to make this paragraph tidier than it deserves to be.
Wednesday 30 September, from six o'clock. That's the evening, straight and simple, and we'd love to have you there.
If you're already fairly sure you're coming, the kindest thing you can do for us and for Danny's kitchen is let us know sooner rather than later.
It helps the room get planned well, and it helps the canapés stretch exactly as far as they need to.
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Wednesday, from six
Wednesday 30 September, 6pm until 10pm.
Agent Nouveau, 82 Poole Road, Westbourne.
£25 per person.
Greek canapés from Romanzo's Taverna, with unlimited prosecco, wine and beer.
Stew Plumridge from Domes Resorts and Kim Sellman from Sovereign, in the room with you rather than at the end of a phone.
We'll have the doors open and the first glass poured right on six, and the room looking rather lovely by the time you walk in.
Two days out, that's where we are. The menu's written and the guests have said yes. There's only one piece left to fall into place, and we're glad it could be you. We'd love to see you there.
Come find us at No.82.
hello@agentnouveau.com