Niall Horan Talks New Album and Dinner Party Secrets While Cooking His Girlfriend’s Dad’s Pasta Dish
The Irish singer-songwriter stopped by our kitchen to cook spaghetti and share the story behind his new album.
Reported by Vogue.
There is a specific kind of man who is genuinely interesting at a dinner party, and it turns out Niall Horan might be one of them. In a recent episode of Vogue's Now Serving video series — where celebrities cook their favorite dishes on camera — the Irish singer-songwriter made a compelling case for himself as both a host and a human being.
His hosting philosophy is, refreshingly, not a Pinterest board. Horan's version of a successful dinner party starts with a fully stocked bar — beer, wine, rosé, cocktails — and operates on a deliberately loose schedule. His opener of choice: a double-shot gin and tonic with lemon or cucumber. "I always do this thing where I think I'm going to serve dinner at a certain time and then never serve it on time," he admitted, because the drinks take over and nobody really minds. Honestly? Correct.
The Dish Behind the Album
What he made for the video is called "Dad's Pasta" — a spaghetti in spicy tomato sauce with bacon and a heavy hand of Parmesan, a recipe belonging to his girlfriend's father. It's the same dish her dad cooked for her mother when they first met. The detail matters, because according to Vogue, Horan's forthcoming album — Dinner Party, out June 5 — was named after the exact event where he met her. "It's basically about that once-in-a-lifetime moment that actually changes the course of your life," he said. A pasta dish as a love story origin point is the most romantically mundane thing imaginable, and somehow it works.
In the kitchen, Horan is self-aware without being self-deprecating to the point of annoyance. He copped to being famously called out online about a decade ago for under-seasoning a chicken, and treated this video as his formal redemption arc. "I'm not gonna say I'm a chef, and you can clearly see I'm not," he said — but he draws a genuine parallel between cooking and songwriting, framing both as acts of assembly that require instinct more than precision. It's the kind of analogy that could read as pretentious and somehow doesn't.
When pressed on what actually makes a dinner party work, his answer skipped the tablescapes and the menu entirely: the right people, good drinks, and the willingness to let the night run past its own timeline. Simple, but not wrong.
The real flex isn't the cooking — it's knowing that the meal is just an excuse for everything else.
Read the original at Vogue.
