The outlook for dinnerware design is cool and contemporary, based on fresh, sophisticated shapes and styles designed to showcase the latest culinary innovations. Traditional settings for a menu of appetizers, entrée, sides, and dessert/coffee are receding under the global influences on food and cooking, as chefs, food and beverage operators, and restaurateurs experiment with multicultural foods, multicourse menus, and multistyle casual dining venues.

Proliferating small plates, now a dominant part of the dining scene, have produced a more flexible, open-ended, ever-changing tablescape. New designs are taking the tasting trend to more elegant, fanciful—often luxe—levels with sculpted, scalloped, ruffled, and compartmented plates; irregularly formed dishes; and curvy or narrowly elongated trays and accessories. The new servers are thinner and flatter than previously seen and are sized for specific foods.

CENTERPIECE
In another global ripple, tableware reflects the Japanese notion of making the plate essential to the dining experience. This concept has inspired flights of fancy, such as serving soups in small apéritif glasses. And several California chefs are giving sides star billing with multiple menu choices served in attractive small plates and bowls.

In short, the longtime marriage of the large round dinner plate and companion utensils is breaking up. Contemporary arrangements feature versatile pieces to stand alone or combine in casual groupings that can be moved about and passed around the table.

With a wider choice of eye-catching, unusual designs, restaurateurs are playing the field, choosing from several sources, rather than staying with one collection. The goal: maximum presentation of their culinary inventions or forays into molecular gastronomy or just capturing a mood of the moment. (The extent of the transforming impact of casual dining styles can be measured by the crossover to consumers and the home market, where a major department store recently announced “New Rules” for planning the first home that include the advice: “Mix and (un)match your china settings.”)

TABLE SERVICE
Table service is about to become even more casual, as some chefs leave conventional menus on the shelf in favor of à la carte offerings. A new hotel dining facility is dedicated exclusively to à la carte service, and one of the country’s leading chefs is moving away from tasting menus to the à la carte style in the restaurants and room service operation of a hotel opening in 2008.

With geometrics dominating the new table service scene, squares, rectangles, and triangles sometimes have rounded edges, bending and, in some cases, swooping upward in graceful eye-stopping forms. Some have cultural nuances, such as an oriental flare. For example, a large square, compartmented for display of sushi and other exotic tidbits, is styled with pagoda-shaped rims. Other designs combine square and curving motifs.

At the same time, in a recurring trend at upscale restaurants, celebrity chefs are opting for the coupe (plain round concave plate) in curvaceous shapes to set off creative entrées and, in particular, for serving steak. For many, the square plate is anathema to the proper presentation of steak dinners.

WHITE AND BEYOND
One constant in the fluid dining scene is a continuing passion for all-white china, mostly bone china but also fine porcelain designs. More than ever, white dinnerware is fashion’s black dress, the perennial favorite of chefs as the perfect canvas for their culinary art. Today’s undecorated china includes several degrees of whiteness, ranging from a bleached superwhite to creamy tones. Bleached superwhite comes from combining design and technology in compositions modeling crisp, contemporary pieces that interpret an urban loft style. Creamy tones express familiar shapes (the artist’s palette-server) for all-around and buffet service. Shades of white have become a significant buying factor. As restaurateurs select designs from multiple sources, they want them to match in tone and color.

Appearing on the horizon are intriguing signs of pattern in eco tones with stylish graphics, generally kept to a minimal feather or brush-stroke of color. One company developed a glaze that approximates the look of pottery in a lively, earthy neutral. Decorative embossing also lends a note of texture and warmth to all-white designs, often taking inspiration from nature.

“Nature’s fusion” is how one tableware specialist sums up trends in tableware design. “Using a single motif—a leaf, floral, washed stones— designers and chefs can create neutral organic settings that pair elegantly with carefully selected ingredients from around the globe,” says Magda Michaud, tableware consultant.

While embracing the all-white aesthetic, producers take different paths in exploring modernist design. Geometrics, for instance, achieve a sense of movement, arcing into wavy shapes, sculpted forms, and provocative curves with a sexy edge.

In one collection, the fluid wavy lines take a playful turn in pieces designed to be used individually or in combining forms. This line also offers small four-inch narrow ovals sized for tasting and sharing.

Some of the most novel designs are thin trayplates, compartmented with circular and arced mini-wells. This invites artful plating of the chef’s creative ideas and offers a different take on tasters.

Elsewhere, styled for multiple-course servings, segmented pieces that can join up to form sensuous, curvy servers add height to presentation. As Michaud points out, “these allow chefs to nest or cradle some of their more layered compositions.” Other trendy designs include a handsome series of bone china bowls and plates, styled for à la carte service.

MERGING CASUAL & ELEGANT
Some producers have found a way to merge casual and elegant elements, combining thin shapes with lightly ruffled rims and evoking a subtle touch of luxe—the essence of tableware’s modern attitude. In one instance, artfully wrought and scalloped fine porcelain plates gleam with a sprinkling of metallic of stars, one of many fashion references in today’s dinnerware designs. Subtle tones and organic colors are other runway styles turning up in trendsetting china.

Taking the fashion story to new heights, an airline company has enlisted nine of the world’s culinary artists to prepare meals for its passengers and has had dinnerware custom crafted by the house of Givenchy.

Smart, stylish china is also a design touchstone on the ground, providing ways for food and beverage directors and chefs to distinguish the bistro and fast-casual architectural themes of popular dining venues. In a continuing exchange with European culinary experts that has leading Paris chefs borrowing American take-out, casual dining patterns, and American entrepreneurs opening upscale brasseries in the U.S., a simple modernist tabletop look has emerged to define the latest restaurant environment. In this sharply minimal but stunning scene, chic, lyrical china designs ignite the spare setting, ultimately turning the focus on food and its presentation.

Even as the traditional tabletop/dinnerware unit moves into many different casual relationships, binding ties of quality and elegance remain intact.

Meade McCabe is a frequent contributor to Hotel F&B.