It’s half past eight on a Sunday night in Chinatown. In a penthouse apartment at Lafayette Hall, a group of 11 friends gather for their weekly Wednesday-night dinner. 

While humble in origin, the dinners have played a pivotal role in the way these students find community. On a nondescript Wednesday night in the fall of 2024, Tisch first-years Kaiya Jordan and Ava Lorch came together to make dinner. Given that Jordan was missing cooking at home, Lorch invited her over to enjoy a warm, home-cooked meal.

“We would go to the dining hall and take ingredients,” Jordan said. “We would go to the salad bar and take a bunch of onions and tomatoes, and on our first night, we made pasta.”

Though that first dinner was far from glamorous, it wasn’t the food itself that mattered, but rather the act of spending quality time with a friend. 

“It was just the time for Ava and I to come together and debrief our week and catch up, and just to enjoy cooking together,” Jordan said. “Slowly, it sort of grew as we invited more and more of our friends to come eat with us.”

As the crowd expanded in the following weeks, the food itself also significantly improved as Jordan and Lorch began menu planning for the weekly dinners. 

“The first few times I came, we only had a potato on the plate,” Steinhardt sophomore Thea Barraque said. “The food has really evolved, and I’m really grateful for that.” 

At the group’s most recent meal, Lorch, who loves to bake, made a banoffee pie and a berry-apple crumble. Jordan prepared scallion pancakes, garlic-sauteed bok choy, marinated cucumber salad, kimbap and four different types of dumplings, the latter of which she showed her friends how to prepare — something that was inspired by her grandmother, who taught her how to make them.

“Earlier today, I called her on the phone,” Jordan said. “She walked me through the recipe and then I was able to share it with everyone here.”

As food was passed around the table, the friends took turns sharing memories about what makes the weekly tradition so special. From a talent show-themed dinner to surprise party dinners, what continues to stand out to the group is not the extravagance, but the simple act of celebrating each other’s company — beyond the confines of a typical friend group. 

“I’m homesick for Wednesday dinner whenever I go back home to California,” Lorch said.

At a university that encourages independence, forming community — for these students, through Wednesday-night dinners — is all the more important. Students’ schedules vastly differ, and especially after the first year of college, many live in many neighborhoods across the five boroughs. To make and keep friends at NYU is to put in dedicated effort, and cooking a dinner for 11 people certainly takes a lot of it — close to three or four hours. But it also means having a constant amid a week packed with classes, and returning to a home away from home.

“We’ll go the whole week and not see some of the people that come to ‘Wednesday night’ and then it will come, and everyone is able to come together,” Jordan said. 

As the meal winds down on this particular Sunday night, the group acknowledges that the dinners might become more difficult to maintain as all their lives and schedules change, leaving the table a few seats empty. Nevertheless, they intend to continue the Wednesday-night tradition for as long as they can.

“It sort of is like a marker of passing time,” Tisch sophomore Alex Carson said. “You don’t even notice growing closer as people and growing up together — but even just tonight, thinking back, we’ve grown up so much since our first Wednesday dinners, and it’s kind of incredible to feel that happen.” 

Contact Ethan Karp at [email protected].