Downstairs Dinner

Appears in
The Official Downton Abbey Cookbook
The Official Downton Abbey Cookbook

By Annie Gray

Published 2019

  • About

DINNER DOWNSTAIRS WAS, AS UPSTAIRS, THE main meal of the day, made up of the most substantial dishes and served with a degree of formality. At Downton we often see the servants’ dinner in progress, presided over by the most senior servant, Mr. Carson, the butler. Staff were expected to exhibit good table manners, and conversations were, as they often are at Downton, censored by the upper staff if they were deemed to be unsuitable topics for the dinner table.

Servants’ dinners consisted of only two courses, unlike the seven-course extravaganzas upstairs. At Downton, as with many houses, they are served in the old-fashioned manner, with many dishes put on the table at once. Service was not a free-for-all, however, not least because several of those present could be expected to serve at the upstairs table and would have learned some of their skills downstairs. This included both footmen and, on less formal occasions such as luncheons, housemaids.