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Transform your next dinner party into a stylised affair with these dinnerware

Exquisite dinnerware from your favourite fashion house lends instant luxe factor and sets the mood for a memorable meal. Bon appetit!

Transform your next dinner party into a stylised affair with these dinnerware

Tiffany Home collection featuring the Tiffany Wisteria pattern. (Photo: Tiffany & Co,)

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We eat with our eyes first and the titillation starts with a beautifully set table with fine dinnerware because it’s a prologue of what’s to come. It’s one of the industry hacks used at fine dining establishments to enhance the gourmand experience, one that you should adopt for your own dinner parties. While a pretty plate may not rescue bad cooking, it can certainly elevate a simple meal, instantly turning it into a more lavish and impressive spread.

Fine china is a worthy investment that pays delicious dividends because it easily earns you the badge of being the host with the most. Luxury dinnerware not only makes your meals look spectacular and more celebratory, but the collectibles can also be passed down as family heirlooms.

You can, of course, commission your own ceramics, like the ones that often feature in Michelin-starred and James Beard award winning restaurants. Or you can simply turn to your favoured fashion houses as many of them do designer tableware now. Some like Hermes feature collaborations with well-known illustrators or artists; others like Versace, work with renowned fine porcelain manufacturers, like German Rosenthal, to ensure the pedigree of their signature plates.

The Soleil d’Hermes dinner service. (Photo: Hermes)

DRESSING YOUR DISHES FOR SUCCESS

Before you start your collection, you should bear a couple of things in mind, as what looks great in a catalogue needs to transcend to the table, when meals are served on them.

“Think of your plate as a canvas for your food,” said local private dining chef, Shen Tan, of Ownself Make Chef. She said it’s not unlike choosing your complementary fashion colours, and a colour wheel can help in guiding what coloured plates show off your meal best.  

  • Colour selection

White and beige foods – think pasta, potatoes or even chicken – are well anchored on deep, darker plates, like black or a dark olive. Vibrant coloured meals tend to look better on white or light-coloured plates, while yellow or mustard plates are great settings for salads and vegetable dishes. Brighter dishes can play up the palatability of Asian meals, which tend to be browner in colour. As most foods aren’t naturally blue, most chefs tend to steer away from using blue plates. “It’s not an appetising colour, and a hard match for dishes,” she shared, so use them judiciously, preferably as an accent, not a dominant shade on the plate.

Vibrant coloured meals tend to look better on white or light-coloured plates. (Photo: iStock)
  • Size does matter

“Don’t serve a starter on a large plate, as it will look lost in space,” chef Tan continued. But you do want some breathing room around the plate, to highlight the meal.  Her tip: A border of about two inches is ideal and it shows off the intentionality of the plating (which includes the design of the plate) and doesn’t feel like you’ve overwhelmed the palate.

If serving Asian food, do look for serving dishes or plates with a bit of depth in them, as the dishes typically have more gravy.

  • Textural contrast

She gives her nods to textured plates, especially those with flecks of colour in them, as this can highlight textural contrast.

Matte plates are good, even more so if you’re one who loves to photograph your food. Serving food on dishes with too much reflection or shine don’t photograph well.

Patterns are pretty but do bear in mind that they shouldn’t be too gaudy that they overwhelm the actual presentation of the meal. Busy patterns may be very attractive and stunning when they are not loaded with food, so she suggests using them as chargers (a charger plate is used as decorous bases for plates and bowls, they are larger than a dinner plate but smaller than a serving platter) and sticking to dinner plates that are less ornate.

You can always mix it up with solids and patterns to up the elegance of a tablescape, and this can also be a little budget-friendlier for those starting out their first collection.

DESIGNER CHINA

As many luxury brands now do home collections, it makes it that much easier to find a tableware set that complements your sartorial style, whether it’s more formal or casual, more laidback, or austere. Some collections are more comprehensive, and feature dinner-, bread-, and dessert-plates, serving platters and soup bowls, and some extend the range with a complementary tea sets. They are usually sold as individual pieces. Other pluses: They are mostly dishwasher-safe, and others are even microwave-safe.

Here are some beautiful sets to start your quest:

HERMES

The Soleil d’Hermes dinner service features graphic motifs that evoke stylised palm trees, an illustration by Arielle de Brichambaut. (Photo: Hermes)
(Photo: Hermes)

The Soleil d’Hermes dinner service, (it is one of two of the French luxury house’s 2023 Tableware collection) lends a sunny disposition to the dinner table. A comprehensive range of 24 pieces (sold individually, online and in-stores), it includes a variety of plates (dinner, pasta, bread and dessert), serving platters and bowls, and a full tea service of teapot, cups, mugs, saucers, sugar bowl and creamer pot. This ode to summer features graphic motifs that evoke stylised palm trees, an illustration by Arielle de Brichambaut. The set is dishwasher- and microwave-safe, which also makes it great for daily use. Prices start from S$90 for a coffee cup. 

LOUIS VUITTON

(Photo: Louis Vuitton)

The French luxury house recently debuted its first tableware collection in mid-November. The comprehensive range includes porcelain dishes, as well as glasses and carafes. These three distinct lines in this now-permanent collection features the graphic spirit of the maison’s Monogram flower, a juxtaposition of timeless tradition and contemporary modernity. The tableware is crafted in Limoges porcelain, with the emblematic and dainty Monogram flower done in a watercolour effect, and set on an ultra-white background.

The Louis Vuitton Tableware collection is available on the official Louis Vuitton website and at a selection of Louis Vuitton stores.

TIFFANY & CO 

The Tiffany T True collection. (Photo: Tiffany & Co.)

When Lauren Santo Domingo came on board as the brand’s first-ever artistic director of the Tiffany Home Collection earlier this year, she relooked a couple of the house favourites that are adorned with some of the house’s most iconic patterns: Tiffany Berries, Tiffany T True, Tiffany Wisteria, Tiffany Toile, Tiffany Audubon, and Valse Bleue. 

A new pattern, Tiffany T True pays tribute to the gilded heritage of the company and inspired by the jewellery collection of the same name, showcases an Art Deco geometric motif on dinner plates, saucers, and charges that have hand-painted platinum rims. The items come in Tiffany blue or gold (they are meant to be mixed and matched) and prices range from S$140 for a bread-and-butter plate, to S$330 for a charger.

The set is crafted from Limoges porcelain and is not microwave-safe, although they can go into a dishwasher. 

DIOR

The Perles tableware collection. (Photo: Dior)

The Perles tableware collection for Dior maison by famous French contemporary artist, Jean-Michel Othoniel was created to celebrate Francis Kurkdjian’s new perfume L’Or de J’adore for Dior. Comprising plates (for dinner, dessert, and bread) and a serving platter, the dynamic motifs echo the gilded bronze sculpture created by the French artist. They are also embellished with a 24-carat gold border, yet again a tribute to the time-honoured traditional use of this luxe metal in Dior’s creations.

The pieces are sold individually, and prices range from S$170 for a plate to S$390 for the presentation dish in this seasonal collection. The collection is available in-store and also for order, online.  

Ralph Lauren

The Garden Vine collection. (Photo: Ralph Lauren)

The American luxury lifestyle house’s Garden Vine collection is a first-ever collaboration with Burleigh, the storied, 160-year-old English pottery maker. Inspired by an East Asian block-printed batik fabric, the pretty large-scale florals mix and match easily with its other collaborative patterns (there are three altogether, including Midnight Sky and Faded Peony). Meticulously hand-finished by Burleigh artisans, each piece is a one-of-a-kind collectible, and made in England.

The earthenware and natural clay range that includes dinner and salad plate, pasta and salad bowls and a complementary tea set, start from £34 (about S$57) for a salad plate. The collection is only available through online order, on the brand’s UK site.

Source: CNA/bt
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