Here’s how to create the proper table setting for the type of meal served and the style of service.

By Pauli Antoine

In a Table d’Hôte Cover, the cutlery and flatware for the entire meal are laid before the first course is served. After the order has been taken, the steward removes all unnecessary items and lays those that may be required.

“Putting the Carte before the Course” is a classic crossword clue. The answer: MENU.

The word “menu,” derives from the Latin “minutus” or something small.  In French, it refers to a detailed list. The original menus were written on a chalkboard or carte, so foods chosen from a bill of fare are described as à la carte or “according to the board.”

The first European restaurants sold broth or bouillon as restoratives and did not have menus. These table d’hôte (tah-buhl DOHT) establishments served family-style meals from the “host’s table” at a fixed price to weary travelers. The contemporary menu first appeared in the 18th century and allowed diners to choose from a list of dishes.  A close relative of a table d’hôte is the prix fixe (pree-fix) or fixed price meal that offers two or more courses, with a choice of dishes per course. 

The Standard Table Cover includes appointments like the centerpiece, salt and pepper shakers, and an ashtray (for smoking areas).

Now that we’ve positioned the carte, let’s set the course. There are a variety of place settings, which have to be laid to prepare for service according to the type of meal and service style. All the items facing a diner when he is seated at the table are parts of the cover, an old-fashioned term for the table setting for one person.  Here is a quick primer on the various components and rules to assembling the proper cover:

3 Components of a Place Setting

1. Dinnerware – plates, cups, bowls, saucers, platters and other serving pieces
2. Flatware – butter and regular knives; salad, pickle and regular forks; soup, dessert and regular spoons
3. Glassware- water goblet, milk and wine glasses, and sorbet glass

4 Types of Flatware 

1. Soup spoon – largest, rounded
2. Salad fork- smaller than regular
3. Butter knife – shape and size smaller than regular, indented and tapered
4. Pickle fork – shape and size smaller than regular

 6 Rules in Dinnerware Placement

1. Allow 20″-24″ for each place setting with the plate in the middle
2. The rule of thumb: the plate should be 1″ from the table edge
3. Bread/butter plate – top left
4. Salad plate – lower top left
5. Soup bowl – on plate or separate
6. Cup/saucer – separate

4 Rules in Flatware Placement

1. The rule of thumb: place items 1″ from the table edge
2. Forks are positioned on the left side of the plate.  Knives, spoons and pickle fork are positioned on the right side of the plate.  
3. Arrange flatware in order of use, from outside going towards the plate. The salad fork should be to the left of the dinner fork if the salad is the first course, and to the right if the salad is served with dinner.
4. Forks should be tines up.  Knives are positioned with the sharp edge towards the plate.  Spoons are laid with bowls up.  The butter knife is placed on the  bread or butter plate with the handle towards the diner.

3 Rules for Glassware Placement

1. The water goblet should be at the tip of dinner knife blade.
2. Other beverage glasses should be at right of the water goblet and slightly forward in a diagonal line or triangular formation. The cup and saucer should be set at the lower right after the main course has been cleared
3. If glassware contents are cold, serve with a linen coaster to catch condensation.

The Standard Table Cover includes appointments like the centerpiece, salt and pepper shakers, and an ashtray (for smoking areas).

Unwrapping the Fast Food Cover

The modern fast food menu is a marvel.  Colorful digital displays became the pop-standard tool for  posting a streamlined and static selection in à la carte fashion and table d’hôte variations.  The concept of modern fast food is a by-product of the Industrial Revolution.   The working class required fast, economical and portable foods.  Nearly from its inception, fast food has been designed to be eaten “on the go” and does not require traditional flatware and cutlery. In Japan, if you want something fast, you press a button on the one-man-chef vendo machine and, presto!

The Blue Plate Meal Service is considered the precursor of modern fast food trays. A manufacturer made plates with separate sections for each part of a meal and for whatever reason they were only available in the color blue.   The term became popular in the late 1920s with restaurants competing on “A La Carte All Day” and “Blue Plate Specials” — “a steak-and-lots-of-onion sandwich for a dime” and “a big blue-plate special, with meat course and three vegetables, for a quarter, just as it has been for the last ten years.”  In Blue Plate Meal Service, serving techniques are not enforced. 

In other words, the romantic “cover” must give way to speed, cost and functionality. Or, must it? 

Edward Lear in his poem “The Owl and the Pussycat,” coined the term “runcible spoon” — the ancestor of the ingenuous plastic spoon with tines.  It appears in the third verse: “They dined on mince, and slices of quince / Which they ate with a runcible spoon.”  Lear also used the term in his nonsense alphabet poem, “Twenty-six Nonsense Rhymes and Pictures” under the entry for the letter D: “The Dolomphious Duck, who caught Spotted Frogs for her dinner with a Runcible Spoon.”

We all must dance with the realities of the action-packed, fast-paced 21^st century so whenever you can, just pack a set of silverware and linen for those quick take-outs — unfolding the fine linen on your lap will remind you that dining doesn’t always have to be that fast and that convenient.  Bon appétit and remember to pack for friends too when dining with them is expected.

REMEMBER THIS

The rules for table setting may seem confusing and complicated.  Here are a few handy tips to help you remember them in a pinch.

• Picture the word “FORKS.” The order from left to right, is: F for Fork, O for the Plate (the shape!), K for Knives and S for Spoons. (Okay, the R is missing.  It stands for Ruler – every item on the cover should be straight and well-measured).
• Holding your hands in front of you, touch the tips of your thumbs to the tips of your forefingers to make a lowercase “b” with your left hand and a lowercase “d’ with your right hand. This reminds you that “bread and butter” go to the left of the place setting and “drinks” go on the right.

Mini-Guide to Ordering in a French Restaurant

In France, restaurants are mandated by law to post their menu with prices outside the door or on the window.  Remember that menu in France does not have the same connotation as it does in English. Le Menu in French is short for Le Menu de Jour or Le Menu à Prix Fixe, (the “à prix fixe” is implied and almost never expressed aloud).  So, if you would like to pick individual items from the menu, just say ‘à la carte’ Generally ordering le menu works out cheaper than ordering à la carte, and lunch menus at French restaurants are cheaper than dinner menus.

Styling by Pauli Antoine.  Photos by Mark Floro/Shot on location at Restaurant 101, Enderun Colleges, 1100 Campus Avenue, McKinley Hill, Fort Bonifacio, Taguig.

This article was published in the April 2011 issue of F&B World Magazine, Front of House.