Tabletop & Bar

Table Settings for Every Occasion

Explore all the different table settings you can create for parties, events or quiet nights at home that deserve a special touch. Enhance your everyday place settings with the newest arrival in fine European glassware. Update your entertaining sets with more of the pieces everyone loves to pass around. Whatever it is that makes your tabletop feel unique, Pottery Barn can help you define the look and set the mood.

Enhancing Your Dinnerware

The simplest way to make an impact with your table settings is to build around what you already own. Your dinnerware may feel familiar to you, but with a few exciting changes, the table becomes novel and interesting to your whole family. Use these tips for weeknight meals, a drawn-out Friday night dinner at home or a Sunday brunch with extended family that still feels like the regular crowd.

• Place settings tend to consist of a dinner plate, a salad plate, a bowl and a mug. With pieces that already match, you can curate pieces that complement instead of exactly matching.
• Check out a variety of bowls. Almost every kitchen can use a few more for serving thick chopped salads alongside meals, fruit medleys after dinner or a mix of several side dishes in smaller portions than the usual one to three that make it into big platters.
• Consider chargers to give visual depth and interest to dinner plates. These ultra-large plates go underneath the dinner plate on top of a placemat for layers of color and pattern.

Selecting Seasonal Dinnerware Sets

Enjoy the fanfare of changing seasons by upgrading or trading out your dinnerware sets. Recognizing the changes in nature and in your life helps you appreciate the beauty of your table settings.

• In warmer months, go for lots of salad plates. Serve tapas and other small bites or greens and fruit plates as meals or when entertaining.
• For autumn, bring back the deep bowls for pasta and soup. Shop for tureens and trivets. Give everyone at the table a cloth napkin for a warm feeling of home.
• As the winter holidays approach, the tabletop becomes significant. Centerpieces anchor your place settings. Formal dishes and silverware make their appearances. It's completely reasonable to start looking for holiday refresher pieces in the fall or earlier.

Upgrading Your Glassware

If you love your dishes and flatware, look to glassware to complete your dining table's style. Many people use the same glasses for years, which makes sense when they're carefully selected--but when something special comes along, it's a good idea to update. Pottery Barn is now the exclusive US retailer for Holmegaard glassware,  a refined Danish brand known for its quality and beauty.

Let the news inspire you to gather around your table to drink wine more often, surrounded by those you love and table settings you picked carefully for their company.