Gen Z is turning to strangers’ potlucks and supper clubs as a gateway to new friendships

Home is the first place, work is the second, but lately, people from the Gen Z demographic across the world have largely been talking about the need for “third places” amid the cityscape. Third places are spaces to create, rest, play, and simply exist as a community, which have too often been pushed to cafes and more cafes.

When it comes to Chennai, this is where the younger generation is taking matters into their own hands and creating third spaces where they can actually meet offline. After all, most of them are far more connected online than in real life. And the latest in the list of third places is potluck. Not the usual ones with friends or colleagues at an office party, but potluck gatherings with absolute strangers from different walks of life. 

In a paradoxical undertone, this Friendship Day, a group of strangers came together with home-cooked food — from sun-dried tomato pasta to biriyani — and gathered at Uptown, the open space at Guindy Kathipara Bridge, at dusk. It was an idea initiated by Gen Z professionals in the IT sector, Ibrahim, Kalaiyarasi, and VFX artist Kamlesh. They opened the space to people of all ages.

“Most of us in our 20s are working from home. The day begins and ends at home and that makes it easy for loneliness to creep in. That’s why we began community events like trekking and potluck with strangers,” says Ms. Kalaiyarasi, 24, co-founder of Trek with Strangers. 

Udhaya Lakshmi, an IT professional who brought homemade sweets, left the potluck having found new friends. For her, potluck with strangers was a completely innovative concept to form connections outside her usual circle. “Food is the easiest way to break barriers, and we are building new friendships through it,” says the co-founder of the circle, Mr. Kamlesh.

Supper clubs

In a similar vision with more ingenuity, Chennai is now ushering in the concept of supper clubs, which has been a global trend where people turned their New York apartments into restaurants. That is where complete strangers gather in the intimacy of someone’s apartment, while the host wears the chef’s hat, curating a multi-course spread. This is precisely what best friends Loshini Gnanasekar and Krishna Rubigha Kandasami have brought into the city’s OMR stretch. Over the course of three such supper clubs in their apartment, they have hosted people that were looking for new friendship circles.

A supper club hosted by ‘Losh & Krish Supper Club’

“We started it for millennials who are eager to break free from the cubicle to home routine; we wanted them to be our core participants, but to our surprise, we see Gen Z turning up too,” says Ms. Krishna.

The duo explains how people today are ‘islands’ in real life but stronger in the digital space. They point out that young people in the city, particularly those in their twenties, are even travelling to other cities purely for concerts and other collective experiences that they feel are scarce at home. “Our supper club is one small step to bring that real life connection back to our city. After all, we are social beings,” adds Ms. Loshini.