Tabletop Design Tips to Create a Beautiful Setting at Home

I realize how intimidating it can be to create delicious, enticing food and set a gorgeous table, but as I always say, beautiful doesn’t have to be complicated. While I’m drawn to aesthetics, my style is certainly rooted in simplicity and accessibility—and this creative credo guided the tabletop design in our Crate & Barrel collection. I wanted to take the guesswork out of setting a table by designing utilitarian pieces that are also worthy of display. With a little thoughtful planning and a few timeless pieces, anyone can execute simple ideas that appear to be far more sophisticated or difficult than they actually are. 

I designed the plates to look just as beautiful on their own as they are stacked; the cheese board, cut from a rosy, terracotta-hued marble looks just as striking on your shelf as it does on your table; and the small bowls that many use for prep, double as decorative objects, too. Everything can, and will, look just as eye-catching beyond the kitchen as it does on your table—don’t you just love an object that does double duty? 

As a visual person, I also love to see the food on the dish: the color, the texture, the beauty but I struggled to find bowls that were shallow enough for serving salad, pasta, or grain dishes. So many of them were too high and swallowed the food within the bowl. When you arrange food in an artful way, you want it to draw the eye and engage the senses on the plate and on the table, so I created very wide and shallow bowls to do both—service with style! With a few beautiful, multi-functional pieces, anyone can pull together a stylish dinner party easily and quickly. So, keep reading to learn a few more of my tabletop design tenets, then shop the look to bring it home.