The phrase "a charming dinner" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe a dinner that is delightful, pleasant, or appealing, often in a social or romantic context.
Example: "We had a charming dinner at the new Italian restaurant downtown, complete with candlelight and soft music."
Alternatives: "a delightful dinner" or "a lovely dinner."
Like a charming dinner guest, he brims with fun facts, good humor and amusing reminiscences.
John Irving is a charming dinner companion, full of interesting conversation.
Philip Pretty is the executive chef at Fundamental LA, the Westwood Boulevard restaurant that by day is a sandwich shop and by night becomes a charming dinner spot with seasonal California small plates and a three-course menu (plus dessert) for $39 (you might also want to opt for the $18 wine pairings).
There's a fun and charming story on Advertising Age about a woman and her friends having a fun and charming dinner together.
A little wit can go a long way in design, but one charming dinner plate is an exception.
Or were you fine until Tuesday, when your charming dinner partner — you were on a promising second date — made an excuse and bailed after the appetizers?
Of Mr. Hampton excusing himself to use the bathroom, never to return; of getting stuck with the $423 dinner bill; of pressing criminal charges to get back his $1,000; of identifying his charming dinner date through the glass of a police station's one-way mirror.
"Only those who knew him well," Mr. Talese added, "or with whom he was sufficiently impressed and thus responsive, sensed the interesting man beneath — the connoisseur of opera, the serious man married to a tall, blithe student of modern dance, the superb mimic of W. C. Fields, the charming dinner guest".
As a young player, McEnroe tormented officials and opponents, but when other players jumped at the opportunity to earn big bucks in South Africa during the apartheid era, he simply said no. Upon arrival in Harare, he was charming dinner guests and promising sneakers for the barefoot children with whom he had hit tennis balls on hardcourts in the economically ravaged township of Chitungwiza.
(By the way, I was one of those furtive schoolchildren mentioned above, and I'm sure my parents would like to personally thank Ms. Hollander (and Jackie Collins, and the people who wrote "Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask" for making me charming dinner-table company during those years).
Fifty years later, I'm reliving those years of duality, and those embarrassing days in the school cafeteria, by way of "Stealing Buddha's Dinner," a charming memoir from a Vietnamese immigrant named Bich Minh Nguyen (pronounced bit min new-win).
