Setting your table & table etiquette

The holidays are coming again. The time of socializing and dinners with friends and family. Good food is part of those dinners, but the eye also wants something of course ;-). Questions that I often hear are: how do you style your dining room table ? What is the etiquette at the table? Because where does that dessert fork belong ? Do you eat from the inside out or from the outside in? To answer these kinds of questions, I'm going to tell you all about the table setting and table etiquette today.

To set the table

For starters, you have different ways of setting a table. For everyday use, you can finish with an informal setting. Often you will only have 1 set of cutlery per cover. You can then place these on either side: fork on the left and knife on the right. Or you can opt for an even more informal setting, more eatery style and place both on the right. The same applies here: fork on the left and knife on the right.

If you look at a luxury dinner set , for example , there will often be several courses. There will therefore be several cutlery items and perhaps also several plates and glasses. You eat from the outside in, so the cutlery that you use first, you put on both sides on the outside. This more or less also applies to the plates. The largest plate is at the bottom, this is the plate for the main course or the bottom plate, on top of it, for example, plates for starters or entremets can be placed. Do you have a bread plate with it? Then it is on the left. You place the glasses at the top right.

There is a specific place for the red wine glass and the white wine glass (and the water glass).

Informal table setting and formal table setting

Below I have a picture for you how to set your table informally or in a formal way. As mentioned, these are just examples and there are several ways to, for example, set the table in an informal way.

• 

• 

Okay, now you know how to put the cutlery and crockery, but how do you style it nicely? Well begun is half done, I would say! We ourselves have a nice large dining room table. Ideal for large groups! Don't have a large table? No problem! You can be creative by, for example, sliding 2 tables together and draping a beautiful tablecloth over it. It is also nice to use a nice tableware set, but you can also mix and match your daily tableware

Accessories on the table

Cotton napkins with a beautiful napkin ring (or, for example, a piece of string with a pine branch) should not be missing on a beautifully set table. Sometimes it can be useful to make a table arrangement and you can therefore place name plates or print menus and write names on them.

Other accessories to give your table a nice finish are, for example, vases with flowers, beautiful coasters or wooden shelves, crystal carafes, pine cones, branches, baubles or garlands. That depends entirely on the theme you are going for! I always think natural is very beautiful. Then you choose, for example, natural rope (for the napkins), branches, pine cones and flowers.

Table etiquette

You have set the table nicely. What are the do's and don'ts at the table?

• Do you use cotton or linen napkins? Iron them neatly before you use them. If, like me, they are in the closet for a whole year, they are bound to be wrinkled.

• Wait until everyone has finished their food before taking out the plates. As the last eater you otherwise feel terribly rushed. This is also culturally determined. I know that in some Eastern European countries, for example, it is very inappropriate to leave dirty dishes for a long time!

• Some things are self-explanatory, so eat with your mouth closed, don't talk with your mouth full, don't be too loud, don't put your elbows on the table. In short, everything your mother taught you in the past ;-).
• Are you a guest somewhere? Then bring a nice gift for the host or hostess and offer to help.

• Most important tip: do your own thing and enjoy! If a glass is wrong or a butter knife is missing, probably nobody will notice and you can still say that you intended it that way ;-).