The Best Dinner Plates, According to Cooks, Designers, and More People With Impeccable Taste
While there’s no singular quality that makes a great dinner plate, you know when you have a less-than specimen: It looks cheap, and it chips and scratches easily. Among those that are well made, what you choose to set your table with is really up to personal preference. Do you like a heavier material, like stoneware or ceramic, or something lighter, like porcelain? Do you want a matte finish or a shiny one? A larger surface area or something smaller? A prominent rim or lip? Are you willing to shell out more money for handmade pieces, or do you prefer a cheaper set you can put through the wringer (and dishwasher) without worry?
To make up this non-exhaustive but still-extensive list of options, I surveyed over 50 chefs and recipe developers, home cooks and avid hosts, designers and prop stylists, and Strategist staffers. From there, I narrowed down selections to be accessible (meaning you won’t find any vintage china you have to hunt down on eBay or enormously expensive pieces here). Then I sorted them into two main sections: white and off-white, colored and decorative. All of these have been used by their respective recommenders for everyday table setting, eating, and washing — in many cases, for a substantial number of years — so you know they’re to be trusted. And if you’re in the market for bowls, you can find my guide to those here too.
Recipe developer and cookbook author Claire Saffitz recently invested in a new set of dinnerware, doing a “huge amount of research” to find the pieces that checked her many boxes, she says: organic form, matte white for versatility, and between ten and 11 inches. She loves that they’re handmade and feel special. Still, they’re a great weight and durable. “I wasn’t certain about the prominent lip,” she says, “but now I really like how it frames the food and contains everything.” She does note that a matte finish means cutlery can leave marks, but those can be removed with special cleaning (and don’t bother her too much anyway).
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