A traditional mise en place

February, 3 2012 • 00:00

Posted inTableware

Inner Design is glad to welcome a new member within its team. Meet Giuseppe Guida, Manager in Training at Four Seasons Hotel in Milan with a passion for food and hospitality. Giuseppe will be guiding us into the world of table setting, giving us precious hints to impress guests with the most adequate and original ideas. Enjoy!


 First of all, we start with a traditional table setting for a lunch/dinner à la carte. That means, no courses are set in advance and everyone will have his opportunity to choose from the menu proposal.

Therefore, the mise en place will be as simple and flexible as possible, allowing more possibilities. In this case, we see the traditional setting: fork on the left, upwards, and knife on the right, inwards, both surrounding the napkin, with the bread plate on the left. Let me stress the importance of the bread plate, both from an hygienical and a aesthetical point of view.

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Two glasses are set here: the one for white wine (called “Chardonnay”), most usual in our restaurant, aligned to the knife top (other restaurants might well consider a red-wine glass more appropriate, depending on their guests); on its right, along a diagonal 45° line, the water glass.

As you notice, the showplate, once used during the entire meal to “host” every other dish, is missing. That is part of the new modern trend that prefers simplicity over magniloquence: that is also the reason we rarely find fuzzy-decorated napkins in modern restaurants (again, this is also due to hygienical reasons…the less the waiter touches the napkin, the cleaner it is).

Giuseppe Guida
Four Seasons Hotel, Milan
http://www.fourseasons.com/milan/