Looking for the best dinnerware sets? With the help of top designers, we've sourced dishes so great they can make a stack of Triscuits look like a meal.
In the search for essential home furnishings, the quest for the best dinnerware sets falls somewhere in between a couch and a Spiralizer. Sure, plates matter—you can’t eat cacio e pepe over the sink—but they aren’t as crucial to everyday life as your mattress. Perhaps that’s why dinnerware sets tend not to elicit the kind of deep-dive, dark-corners-of-the-internet, sub-sub-Reddit research the way beds and vacuums do. Does this plate hold my food? Yes. Is the color not offensive to my eyes? Yes. Annnnd scene.
Sure, any old thing can serve as a functional vessel for holding roast chicken/avocado toast/Frosted Flakes, but the best dinnerware sets do a lot more. Like a well-tied scarf, a pair of adventurous pants, or a beautifully worn-in leather couch, the best dinnerware sets have the power to telegraph your taste to anyone lucky enough to see them. We’re in the golden age of artisanal-ification, where everything from your clothes to your food to, yes, your home decor is better the vibe-ier (to use a technical term) it is. And triangulating your personal style, your budget, and the need for basic functionality/durability amid the swirl of vibes can make shopping for dishware very tricky.
In order to help you find something both handsome and functional, we first consulted Alex Beggs, senior staff writer at Bon Appetit. Beggs says it’s important to consider the advantages and disadvantages of the material you get above anything else. For example, ceramic dinner sets are great for most people because the material is hearty, dishwasher-safe, and looks fancier than it often costs, but it can make eating with metal utensils a noisy affair. She also said you should pay attention to whether your dishware stacks easily, thereby ruling out most square or wavy plates.
With the advice from Beggs, we dove into the wide world of dinner sets you can buy on the internet, scanning the wares of direct-to-consumer startups, small restaurant supplies, and juggernaut home decor brands. We prioritized companies with streamlined, minimalist offerings in terms of aesthetics, but also companies with a large range of dishware. Obviously that had to include big dinner plates and cereal bowls, but ideally you could turn to the same company for smaller plates, mugs, and the kind of short, wide, low-profile bowls that have become ubiquitous on Pasta Instagram. And once we had some ideas, we got some help from a team of accomplished designers, including Emilio Halperin (a product designer at West Elm), Jessica Helgerson (of Jessica Helgerson Interior Design), Alexandra Kalita (of Common Bond Design), and Garrett Warnick (a designer formerly of Lindsey Adelman Studio).
The end result is this, a list of the best dinnerware sets we’ve found. The results span a range of materials and price ranges, but we’re confident any of them will make that rushed sheet pan dinner feel like a meal at one of the best restaurants in the world.
$12
Muji
“It's no secret that Muji is the go-to spot if you want to subtly flex your tastefulness without breaking the bank,” says Warnick. Among a growing set of the creative class, Muji clothing, travel gear, and stationary has all been lauded for its simplistic aesthetics and hyper-functionality. The company's dishware, thankfully, strikes the same balance.