Serveware

A portion of curry lifted from the pot onto a beautiful serving plate — suddenly, Wednesday dinner looks like something you purposefully cooked. A soup, served from a large ceramic tureen instead of a small pot — and the family comes to the table unasked.

Servingware is the underestimated middle class of table culture: between cookware and individual plates. It takes food from the pot, brings it to the table, keeps it warm, and presents it in a form that is more than just transport.

Eva Solo from Denmark

Eva Solo's servingware follows Scandinavian thinking: reduced in form, highly functional in use. Double-walled serving bowls that arrive hot and stay hot. Salad bowls with cutlery that rests in holders on the rim. Carafes, coasters, small tureens. All in clear colors — white, graphite, terracotta — and all designed to fit into both modern and classically furnished households.

The Shapes

• Serving plates & platters — for meat, fish, buffet vegetables. Often oval or rectangular.
• Serving bowls — for salad, side dishes, pasta dishes — mostly double-walled or with lids.
• Tureens & soup pots — with lids, straight from the oven to the table.
• Cheese boards & tapas boards — for cold compositions, often made of wood or stone.

What a well-chosen serving bowl can do: It turns an everyday soup into a feast. Anyone who owns a stoneware tureen consciously ladles from it in front of each guest, and the ceremony of serving replaces decoration. This means: less effort at the table, more impact. A reason why restaurateurs invest in beautiful servingware — and why you can replicate this at home.

See also: Baking Dishes & Quiche Forms, Dinnerware & Plates.