The Best Host Gifts, According to Hosts With Great Taste (original) (raw)
By ,a writer at the Strategist covering Gen Z shopping habits and fashion. She joined the Strategist in 2024. Previously, she wrote about gifts at Shop Today.
Photo-Illustration: The Strategist; Photos: Retailers
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that you should never show up to a dinner party empty -handed. So that begs the question: What exactly do you get for the friend who’s known for their caviar and potato chip spreads? How about the family member who’s letting you stay for the weekend or the work colleague who’s having you over for dinner? Sure, as fashion designer and culinary creator Peter Som says, a bottle of wine is like “the little black dress of dinner parties” — never a bad idea, but probably won’t steal the show. And so, to help you find a truly memorable gift for whatever host you might be thanking, I asked a smattering of the most tasteful, prolific host extraordinaires I know about their go-to gifts.
As it turns out, many of them agree there are certain no-no’s in the host gift world (as in, no bouquets of flowers without a vase or dish that needs assembly upon arrival), but it’s hard to go wrong with an upgraded version of something that they actually use, like a luxe bottle of hand soap or a craft jar of jam. Below, I’ve sorted all the gifts by price, so if you know your budget, you can skip ahead to the corresponding section or browse everything from top to bottom.
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“Unfortunately, expensive French butter really does taste better,” says Anna Stockwell, the author of the forthcoming The Butter Book. She recommends pairing this sea-salt-loaded butter with a loaf of bread as a gift.
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You could also take a note from Big Night founder Katherine Lewin, who suggests pairing good butter with this spreader from Sabre, which comes in more than 20 color options.
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Your average dinner party doyenne probably already has an arsenal of wooden spoons and spatulas, but it’s not often that kitchen classics like the whisk get an upgrade. Dan Pelosi, author of the cookbook Let’s Party, says this unique flat whisk from Material Kitchen “whisks 500 times better than the other whisks.” It’s so good, in fact, that former Strategist writer Chloe Anello got rid of all her whisks once she tried this one.
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Sometimes gifts for the little ones are gifts for adults, too. When headed to an event where there will be kids, Christene Barberich, author of the newsletter A Tiny Apt, heads to Muji to make some art kits filled with notebooks and colorful pens. “They’re great because then you can keep them in the car. You can take them to restaurants,” she says. “My husband and I have little art kits like all over the house in every bag.”
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Photo: Courtesy of Vendor
Also for kids: A mini orange surprise ball that’s full of littles toys, temporary tattoos, fortunes, and more delights. According to Coming Soon co-founders Fabiana Fari and Helena Barquet, the balls have been such a hit with the kids who they’ve gifted them to that there’s a demand for more: “If we show up at their house, they’re asking where their orange surprise ball is,” says Barquet.
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Packed with chilies, anchovies, shallots, and garlic, this isn’t your average chili oil. “If it’s somebody who loves to cook and loves experimenting with recipes and food, it’s always a winner,” says Barberich, who orders multiple jars at a time.
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Stockwell’s cupboard is full of these colorful taper candles that are hand-dipped in Maine. “I always have them in my closet so I can pull a set of beautiful colored tapers out, wrap them in some tissue paper, and have a fancy gift,” she says.
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After noticing a host was “very aware of the presence of flies around the food” at an outdoor gathering, food writer and author of the cookbook What Can I Bring? Casey Elsass surprised them with these rather chic food covers. To use, simply “lift it up, get what you need, and put it back on.”
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Rather than filling people’s homes with more things, Los Angeles–based cookbook author and recipe developer Naz Deravian prefers to gift something they can use the next day for breakfast, like these jams, which are made by a Bay Area jam-maker. “She makes really interesting jams using Persian flavor profiles, but then puts her own twist on it,” she says Deravian. While the apricot-lemon-verbena is one of her favorites, the flavors change with the seasons, so “I keep a list to make sure that if I’m not gifting the same flavor,” she adds.
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It wouldn’t be a host gift guide without a good ol’ bucket of Maldon flaky salt. “There was a whole Christmas where I gave everybody in my family Maldon salt because they had never had it before,” says Nick Ozemba, one of Quarters’s co-founders. “People who know it are just like, ‘Great, thank you.’ And then the people who don’t are just like, ‘What is this amazing salt that you just gifted me?’”
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With a $28 price tag, this eucalyptus-scented hand soap falls into the “affordable luxury” category, meaning it’s nice enough that someone wouldn’t necessarily buy it for themselves but it still won’t break the bank, according to writer and founder of Prix Fixe, Oset Babür-Winter. As for the soap itself, she says, “It’s definitely more herbaceous than minty.” Plus “it also just looks pretty minimal on the counter.”
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“I find that most of my friends have enough knickknacks and stuff,” Som says, so he recommends zhuzhing up their pantry with something punchy, like Fishwife’s tinned fish. “You’re not getting somebody Kirkland olive oil, you’re getting them a nice thing,” he says.
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Photo: Courtesy of the Vendors
As a Rhinebeck native, Stockwell likes to gift this liqueur that’s made from locally sourced black currants in the Hudson Valley. “You can add it to seltzer to make a spritz, and it’s super-refreshing and subtly sweet,” she says. (The brand makes a nonalcoholic version, too.)
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“No one is ever mad at coasters,” says Barquet. This option from Gaetano Pesce is great for kids and adults since everyone can use them as coasters, but as Barquet says, “Kids stick them on the windows. They look like stained glass.” (And if you’d like to go the place mat route, we recommend those, too.)
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With co-signs from Lewin and restaurateur Flynn McGarry, Inez is on track to be the next big olive oil. In addition to the gift-y, nicely designed packaging and fresh taste, the brand has an appealing backstory: It’s a family-run business in the Santa Ynez Valley with a small crop of organic olive trees.
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As Lewin says, “Nobody is not pleased to receive this tin of chips.” Amy Sedaris has gone on the record as a superfan, and if you’re wondering if they’re worth it, Lewin says there’s nothing else like them: “They’re super, super, super thin and shattering, but not so thin that they don’t hold up to a dip. They’re truly the perfect, perfect amount of salty. You could just sit there, going at that bucket for a while, and you don’t feel sick.”
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Santa Maria Novella’s wax tablets are an unexpected treat for the nose in your friend group. While Strategist senior editor Winnie Yang stores hers with her sweaters during warmer months, Mélanie Masarin, the founder of spirits-free aperitif brand Ghia, says they’re like scented “jewelry for your closet or drawers.”
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Elsass’s go-to gift is one of these classic board games that are packaged to look like hardbound books. “Each of the games is just exactly the kind of game that you grew up playing, and then you forgot about it,” he says. “To have really chic packaging for that game, where it can just sit out in the open without looking like a clunky stack of misshapen boxes on top of each other, is such a nice little gift for your favorite host.”
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As one of the queens of embroidery, Abbode founder Abby Price likes adding personal touches to her gifts. Since you can’t embroider caviar spoons, she turned to Etsy to give her boyfriend’s mom a set of personalized mother-of-pearl caviar spoons. “She is Russian and loves caviar, and then she eats with a plastic spoon,” she says. “I’m like, ‘No. You can’t do this.’”
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“This isn’t one of those industrial aprons where you feel like the pressure is on to make some really hearty steak or anything,” says Deravian. No, it’s a poppy-dotted apron designed by a local creator in Seattle that she has gifted again and again to the hosts in her life.
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“Whenever anyone comes to our house, they always ask why it smells so good,” says Barberich_._ The answer, it turns out, is this sage-, vetiver-, and cedar-scented incense that she buys four boxes at a time to keep her personal stash and gifting stash aplenty. “It makes everything feel luxurious when you burn the incense,” she says.
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For the consummate host who believes in place cards, Elsass recommends these personalized ones that you can customize with the host’s name or a special word. You can leave the guest name space blank, so the host can use them whenever they see fit.
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Babür-Winter counts this personalized olive oil as a staple in her host-gift arsenal. Whether she’s going to a dinner party, housewarming, or just comforting a friend going through a breakup, she’ll customize the label accordingly, which means the host can refill it again and again. (And as she says, “Even when you run out of the olive oil, if the packaging is beautiful, why not just refill it with whatever?”)
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These aren’t your average caramel apples, according to Chord founder Mary Orton, who likes gifting these tasty Granny Smiths with a personalized note. “They’re crazy, over-the-top, decadent, delicious, ginormous caramel apples that I cannot get enough of,” she says.
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This Persian rice cooker that makes it easy to cook tahdig is “the best gift ever on earth,” says Deravian, who gives it to all her friends. “Every single friend who I have gifted this tells me that it’s become a part of their weekly meal plan,” she says. For a special touch, she recommends adding a bag of her favorite rice, Royal Chef’s secret basmati white rice.
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As a cook, Pelosi believes in sharing the little things that improve his life in the kitchen. For him, that’s something as simple as a magnetic trivet that allows him to move hot dishes from counter to counter without burning himself.
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We first reported on the heirloom tomato scent craze back in 2021, and it hasn’t shown any signs of stopping since, with the latest addition being a limited-edition one from Malin + Goetz and Carbone. If you’d like to gift Pelosi’s favorite version, though, go for this candle from Flamingo Estate that smells like tomato leaves themselves. As he says, “The good thing about giving a candle to somebody is that candles are the most easily re-giftable thing in the whole world.”
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Over in the hand-soap aisle, Loewe’s tomato-leaves solution has popped up everywhere from buzzy restaurants like Zimmi’s and the design store Quarters to comedian Bowen Yang’s sink. Masarin suggests it as a gift for hosts you don’t know well.
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“Some people may call it boring. I call it ‘universally accepted,’” says Som of his go-to gift: a clean, light, and non-musky candle. Top of his short list is this classic one from Diptyque that smells like black currant and roses.
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“Servers are just a useful item to have around, especially in a house that hosts,” Lewin says. For occasions when she’s going somewhere for the weekend, she’ll gift the host this dishwasher-safe set from Sabre.
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The Liberty Puzzle fan club includes Faria, Barquet, and Orton. The hand-cut puzzles stand out because of their “whimsy pieces,” which are specialty cut puzzle pieces in the shape of delightful things like teacups, watering cans, and flowers. “You can buy a frame if you want,” says Faria. “That’s how fancy they are,” Barquet adds.
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“Most people already have the martini glass, but does everyone have a chic thing to stab your olives with? Not necessarily,” says Som. He recommends these clean and simple stainless-steel cocktail picks from Christofle that suit most anyone’s aesthetic. “There’s always room for an upgrade with a cocktail accoutrement,” he adds.
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“One of the first things I bought for my very first apartment in New York City … was this really pretty plate from John Derian,” says beauty founder Kate Mcleod. Now she likes gifting them to all her friends since there are countless prints to choose from, including plates depicting moons, diamond rings, and teacups.
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