Toronto has no shortage of excellent places to eat. Sometimes, though, the best dining room is your own.

Maxwell Hospitality creates private dining and holiday events in Toronto for people who want the quality and intention of a great restaurant with the privacy, comfort and freedom of entertaining at home.

Led by Chef Jacob Maxwell Hoskins, our approach is intentionally personal. We take on a limited number of events, develop menus around each occasion and put the time into food that larger-format catering doesn't always allow for. Recipes are developed thoughtfully. Cooking is done from scratch wherever practical. Ingredients are selected for quality and seasonality, with an emphasis on organic ingredients and local producers when available.

Nothing needs to come from a standard holiday package.

A dinner for eight close friends deserves a different menu from cocktails for thirty colleagues. An engagement dinner should feel different from the Christmas party you host every December. We begin with the occasion, rather than asking you to choose from a predetermined list.

Jacob develops each menu around the guests, the setting and how you want the evening to unfold. That could mean a composed multi-course dinner, oysters and passed bites before dinner, generous dishes shared around the table, or an evening of smaller plates designed for people who would rather mingle than sit down at seven sharp.

There is room to make it specific.

We can take into account favourite ingredients, dietary requirements, personal traditions, a wine you want to build dinner around, or a dish that means something to the people at the table.

Jacob has spent more than a decade cooking professionally across Canada and the United States, from high-volume and refined restaurant kitchens to intimate private dinners and significant private events. His career has included culinary leadership, restaurant openings, menu development, high-end weddings and large-scale productions.

He has cooked within kitchens led by nationally recognized culinary talent and for discerning private clientele, where discretion is simply part of the job. His work has also been featured within hospitality experiences covered by publications including Vogue and The New York Times.

That experience shows up here quietly.

It is in the hours of preparation before anyone arrives. The dish adjusted because the produce was better than expected that morning. The sauce made specifically for the menu. The understanding that food for twenty people still deserves the attention you would give food for two.

For us, elevated doesn't mean unnecessarily complicated. It means somebody cared.

Maxwell Hospitality creates intimate and larger-format private events throughout Toronto, including:

• Christmas & Holiday Parties
• Private Dinners & Celebrations
• Engagement & Anniversary Dinners
• Corporate & Executive Entertaining
• Cocktail Parties & At-Home Events

Depending on the occasion, dinner can take the form of a seated multi-course experience, family-style service, passed hors d'oeuvres, substantial small plates or a combination designed around the flow of the evening.

Private dining also gives you something a restaurant cannot: the evening belongs entirely to you.

There is no reservation after yours. Nobody needs to hear the conversation at the next table. The music is yours, the wine is yours, and when dinner is finished, nobody is bringing the bill because they need the table back.

You should be at your own party.

Our job is to take care of the food with enough thought, preparation and experience that you don't have to think about it once your guests arrive. You can actually have the conversation, open the bottle you've been saving and enjoy the people you invited over in the first place.

You open the door. Pour a drink. Sit down when the food is ready.

We'll take care of dinner.

Maxwell Hospitality accepts a limited number of private dinners, Christmas parties and holiday events throughout Toronto each season.

If you're planning a dinner, office holiday party or evening at home this November, December or New Year's season, tell us a little about your guest list, your space and what you want the evening to feel like.