Toast of the town: The secrets to a successful diplomatic dinner

In an elegant reception room at the Luxembourg embassy in Washington, a crémant is on ice and canapés are being plated as Nicole Bintner-Bakshian, ambassador to the US, eagerly awaits her guests. “This is one of my favourite evenings at the embassy,” she says to Monocle. 

But it’s not a White House official joining her for dinner. Gathered outside in their best business attire are nine graduate students from Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy and its School of Foreign Service. They have all landed coveted places in a class that aims to help the world’s future diplomats to grasp the role of social functions. “It gives you a unique understanding of how diplomacy happens at a dinner table, outside those formal engagements,” says Christian Rowcliffe, an aspiring “warrior diplomat”, as army officers engaged in statecraft are known. He is studying for a master’s in policy management at Georgetown. 

When Bintner-Bakshian opens the doors to the Art of Diplomacy event, she’s flanked by course professor and Georgetown alumnus Mark Vlasic. A former UN war-crimes prosecutor and White House fellow, Vlasic has seen at first hand how softer skills and dinner-table diplomacy can quite literally save lives. As the head of a private diplomacy firm with more than a decade in international negotiations, he reached out to ambassador friends in different cities during the pandemic to find neutral ground for hosting tense talks. “I said, ‘Could I borrow your residence, your chef and your wine cellar to bring people to the table?’” he explains. “That was the recipe for success.”

The experience led to the idea for a course in leveraging the diplomatic dinner table and in 2022 the Art of Diplomacy welcomed its first intake. Over a term, 10 students are hosted by ambassadors across 10 embassies in Washington. The course is as much about learning the protocol of the diplomatic dinner table as it is about the policy knowledge gleaned from the events. High-level events can be intimidating and knowing which silverware to use takes away some of the early nerves. 

“Every country has its own ways of hosting parties but, at the core, it ultimately comes down to people getting together and creating an atmosphere of trust,” says Bintner-Bakshian, whose postings have included Beijing, Dakar and the UAE. She answers the cohort’s questions throughout the evening with frankness and patience. “The knowledge that each of these ambassadors has built over the years is priceless,” says Niel Swanepoel, who is studying a master of science in foreign service. “I don’t think that this is knowledge that you can easily learn in a classroom.”