The Expert-Recommended Items You Need for a Flawless Holiday Table

Around this time of year, you’re probably planning holiday meals, making ingredient lists for the spectacular centerpiece roast and side dishes, baking cookies, and calculating how much booze you’ll need to buy to spike the festive punch. But if you’ve thought a lot about preparing the meal, have you considered how you’re going to serve it? 

A festive celebration needs a good-looking, but functional, tablescape. You want your guests to feel that the occasion is special, but you'll also need tools that will make serving the meal more efficient. “I like to set the table with everything that I’m going to need,” says Annie O’Hare, chef-owner of New York City catering company and private dining space O Cuisine. And, for a holiday meal, that includes all the plates, bowls, glasses, flatware, and napkins for individual place settings, as well as serving dishes and utensils. For the holidays, look for a combination of festive touches and serious utility. Here are our picks for the best gear to make your holiday table shine.

When a veritable smorgasbord of dishes is on the table, look toward a set that’s more elaborate, with plateware that allows some formality. The top choice in our dinnerware sets review is this 45-piece, English-made porcelain collection from Made In. It accommodates four and lets you serve appetizers, entrées, bread and butter, soup, and (here’s a novel use for an entrée-sized bowl) several desserts along with a mug of coffee. Best of all, it’s durable; it didn’t stain, scratch, or overheat in the microwave when we tested it. With its upscale-casual vibe and oven-to-dishwasher functionality, Made In is made for the holidays.

Looking for a flatware set that does it all? After testing 19 sets, we can definitively say that our favorite budget pick, Lenox, has your back for up to a dozen guests. You can confidently serve appetizers and the main meal, including soup or saucy sides, as well as dessert with this lightweight, dishwasher-safe stainless steel set. With its flared and beaded handles, this elegant yet low-key flatware is just as good for the main festivities as it is for leftovers the day after. We found it performed especially well when cutting and scooping. The collection comes with serving utensils, so you don’t have to worry about shopping separately for those.

A dinner knife is fine for coaxing peas onto a fork or segmenting softer sides. But when your guests are working their way through the Hanukkah brisket or Christmas roast beef, a knife with a sharp blade for slicing is a must. We tested 28 steak knife sets, putting them through the paces with skirt steak, filet mignon, and even a professional blade edge tester, and this affordable, German-made one was our budget winner. Available in three solid colors or a rainbow of elegant hues, it adds interest to the table, but it also packs a punch, working quickly through both tender and tougher cuts. The set of four blades comes with a wooden knife block.

A pop of color adds a festive feel to the holiday table, and this elegant, cotton napkin—one of our top pick out of the 11 reusable napkins we tested—does the job with a luxuriously thick weave. They're a little heavier than most napkins we tested, and they look great on a set table. Choose from a variety of colors, including festive options like Pine and Claret.

If your crowd is into partying with up drinks, this classic, six-ounce coupe glass beat out the competition in our review. It has a timeless look that gives cocktail hour a sophisticated, nostalgic vibe. It was far more durable than many others on the market, which tend to have thin, delicate walls. This glass is fairly thick, which also helps insulate cold drinks, and its stem is short enough with a large enough diameter to resist breakage. It fits well in the dishwasher, too. A martini or Manhattan will look so good in it that it might even make the cocktail banter wittier. You get six glasses in a set. 

Seasonal Fig & Cinnamon Punch, Yuletide eggnog—the holidays are the time of year when punch ladled from a bowl seems just right. Williams Sonoma’s glazed stoneware version sets the spirit with a traditionalist oak-leaf design. It comes with eight mugs that hook along the rim for a space-efficient presentation. And since fishing a submerged ladle out of a punch is a total bummer, we’re fans of this bowl’s highly functional ladle. It has an ample cup and a notched handle so that it rests against the bowl rim without falling in. Hosting a crowd? The bowl can handle up to 6.5 quarts of libation.

You’ll need more than one serving platter for a big meal. Williams Sonoma gives you three in this ceramic set, our top, all-purpose choice among the 10 options we’ve tested. You’ve got an 18-inch platter for the roast, a 16-inch one for piles of vegetables, and a 12-inch one for mashed potatoes or stuffing. With their concave shape, the trio can hold saucy foods, and they make scooping up dishes easy without spilling over the sides. The built-in handles, if a bit tight, are attractive and highly functional for transporting, and the platters are dishwasher- and microwave-safe—if you have a microwave big enough to fit them! Though they don’t come cheap, you’re in part paying for sustainability, as 35% of the materials are post-consumer recycled.

Though a Burgundy or Bordeaux glass can be excellent when you’re lavishing attention on a single varietal of wine, the holidays call for many different bottles to go with various courses and to accommodate various guest preferences. For such occasions, the best choice is a universal wine glass. With their relatively thick stems, these do-it-all Riedel wine glasses resist breakage. Their narrow, tapering bowls direct aromas right where they need to go—into guests’ noses—for optimized tasting. The bowls are tall and tight enough to keep sparkling wines effervescent, and at 14 ounces, they’re just the right size to accommodate both big reds, while their shape is perfect for bright whites. Another reason they ended up at the head of the pack in our review: They’re compact enough to easily tuck in a cabinet.

Offset the understated elegance of the VINUM wine glasses with a showier companion. Riedel delivers again with these snazzy Art Deco-style drinking glasses, our top choice for a vessel that can switch hit from water to cocktails. Use the highball glass for what it’s named for or pour in an autumnal cider, winter beer, or nonalcoholic soda. Let the rocks-sized glass hold ice water while at the table and, after the meal, use it to serve drams of Scotch in front of the fireplace or football game. The thick crystal bases decrease the likelihood that one will tip over when an errant arm reaches for a serving dish, and the deep, vertical grooves help with sure-handedness when holding them. They don’t come cheap, but boy, are they sexy.

You can serve all the Whos down in Whoville their roast beast when you’re working with this behemoth of a braiser from Misen. As we found out when we tested it against seven competitors, our favorite large-capacity braiser, at more than 16 inches wide, holds a lot of meat for searing, roasting, and bringing to the table. The cast iron is an excellent heat conductor, and the enamel coating is non-stick and durable. Plus, it adds cheerful color to the table. You’ll need to work out first to lift it, as it adds 18 pounds to the load when you’re carrying a roast turkey from the kitchen. But the wide handles let you get a good grip, even with a pair of hefty oven mitts on.

Don’t carve your holiday roast with a regular old knife: A carving set is much more effective. This German manufacturer is known for super-sharp quality, and when we tested it, we found that the full-tang, triple-riveted design felt balanced and gives full control when you’re gripping the handle while slicing and carving both boneless and bone-in cuts. The blade’s hollow edge reduces friction, so you won’t tear the meat, and at eight inches, the length is just right: It’s long enough for ample slices yet short enough to maneuver around bones and do finer work. As for the fork, the closeness of the tines and the compactness of its design make it a steady companion for the knife. When you’re staring down an enormous ham and a table of eyes are watching, this is the high-performance duo you want in your hands.

There is nothing worse than cold, congealed gravy. To keep gravy warm and silky, check out a gravy boat with a built-in heater. We think the holidays deserve a handsome design. Mimicking a fondue pot, this lovely porcelain boat from Pillivuyt uses a tea light to keep gravy at the optimal temperature. Just tuck the candle into the tidy compartment, strike a match, and place the boat atop the trivet. This little platform also helps elevate the gravy boat, so guests can locate the special sauce on the crowded table. At just 12 ounces in capacity, the boat isn’t huge, but it pours precisely and can go from the microwave to the dishwasher to even the freezer without incident.

For a utensil that can go from the stovetop to the table, you really can’t beat a sauce spoon. With its big, tapered bowl and long handle, it works for stirring, basting, drizzling, and afterward, serving. Plunk this stainless steel spoon from JB Prince into the mound of mashed potatoes, or use it to scoop up the minted peas or roast root vegetables.

A favorite of chefs, this classic, wooden mill will amp up the traditional feel of your holiday table. Beyond its appearance, its performance is top-notch. (It won the top spot in our pepper mills review.) With six settings, you can dial into the precise size of the grind, and its well-engineered mechanism makes quick work of those peppercorns. For all the bells and whistles of modern pepper grinders, this one is also blessedly straightforward. You just hold and twist.

The pièce de résistance of your holiday dessert sideboard deserves this gorgeous cake stand. With its crystal-clear dome, showstopping treats can be kept on display and fresh. At 13 inches in diameter, the wide base fits a cake, pie, or stack of cookies big enough to feed a crew. The thick glass pedestal and knobby top handle stand up to plenty of use and are dishwasher-safe. Plus, the price is right compared to other cake stands out there.

OXO, a leader in cooking and serving utility, makes this precision pie server. The stainless steel tool’s serrated edges slice through crust with clean force whether you’re left or right-handed. The flexible head allows you to pull out an ample slice with the crust intact. The stainless steel handle is attractive and just feels good in your hand. It’s a surefire bet for a moderate price. 

FAQs

How do you set a table?

Start with a tablecloth or beautiful surface, says O’Hare. If everything is being served family-style in one course, you can set your napkin atop the entrée plate and place the knife and fork on top of it. If you’re having multiple courses, you can set the appetizer plate atop the entrée plate, or even a charger, but put out all your flatware at once on either side of the plates. Place water and wine glasses above and to the right of the plates.

What is a formal table setting?

“A formal table setting is one where all the utensils are already on the table,” says O’Hare. "Forks go on the left, knives and spoons on the right. Dessert utensils are laid across the top.”  If you want to get really fancy, you can use a charger. That’s a large plate that defines an individual place setting, but it is just for show. Eventually, after the appetizer, it will be taken away.

The water glass goes above the knives, and the wine glass slightly above that to its left. For multiple wine glasses, set the white wine glass on the inside and the red on the outside. If you have room for bread plates and butter knives, those go on the left-hand side, with the butter knife atop the plate.

What do you need for holiday table settings?

Since the holiday is a multicourse meal, you’ll want plenty of options for plates and flatware. You may be serving more than one thing to drink, so a holiday table needs water glasses and perhaps more than one wine glass. After that? “Some extra decor themed around the holiday is nice,” says O’Hare.

Why We’re the Experts

• Betsy Andrews is a James Beard- and IACP-awarded journalist who has written about food and drink for more than a quarter century. 
• She has tested many products for Serious Eats, and she entertains constantly at home, throwing big dinner parties and holiday meals with elaborately set tables. 
• At Serious Eats, we rigorously test kitchen gear and regularly revisit our recommendations to ensure they still stand.