page_title: Table setting
section_title: Formal dinner
hierarchical_section_title: Table setting / Place setting / Formal / Formal dinner
caption_attribution_description: English: Imaginative sketch by Marguerite Martyn of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch shows a formal dinner party, with exact place settings. Guests are being served by a butler. Two men and two women are pictured.
context_page_description: Table setting or place setting refers to the way to set a table with tableware—such as eating utensils and for serving and eating. The arrangement for a single diner is called a place setting. It is also the layout in which the utensils and ornaments are positioned. The practice of dictating the precise arrangement of tableware has varied across cultures and historical periods.
context_section_description: The most formal dinner is served from the kitchen.  When the meal is served, in addition to the central plate (a service plate or dinner plate at supper; at luncheon, a service plate or luncheon plate) at each place there are a bread roll (generally on a bread plate, sometimes in the napkin), napkin, and flatware (knives and spoons to the right of the central plate, and forks to the left).  Coffee is served in Butler Service style in demitasses, and a spoon placed on the saucer to the right of each handle.  Serving dishes and utensils are not placed on the table for a formal dinner.  The only exception in the West to these general rules is the protocol followed at the Spanish royal court, which was also adopted by the Austrian court, in which all cutlery was placed to the right of the central plate for each diner.
  At a less formal dinner, not served from the kitchen, the dessert fork and spoon can be set above the plate, fork pointing right, spoon pointing left.
caption: Place settings are conspicuous in this 1920 sketch by reporter-artist Marguerite Martyn of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Pixelmator 3.7", "Image DateTime": "2018:03:21 11:03:30", "Image ExifOffset": "150", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3000", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2606"}