When Dinner Goes Analog

For a BONUS Weekend Dispatch: 28 special touches that take a meal the extra MILE.

A few weeks ago, Eater published a piece on restaurants leaning into handmade details. Writer Bettina Makalintal touched on the way something as small as a handwritten menu or embroidered napkin can read like an act of rebellion in the age of AI — how, in the same-ification of, well, everything (but particularly New York City dining), we’ve found ourselves lingering a bit longer at a table that’s lit by drippy candles, or in a window booth draped with lace curtains. It’s a good reminder that a meal is never just about the food: it’s LIGHT, special linens, cutlery that looks good/feels good in the hand, the way you’re greeted at the door. Something that stays with you long after you’ve headed back home.

For today’s surprise Saturday send, we’ve got a shortlist of pieces to bring that same analog air to dinner at home. Before our picks, we asked OTH friend Jill Singer, founder of Sight Unseen, writer of Counter Space here on Substack, and hosting/design extraordinaire, to share a few quick tips/ideas for giving your next table a bit of unhurried warmth:

1. Go with the Flow — “I’m not generally a flowers person, but in the summer in particular, I’ve been unconsciously taking cues for the table from the florals. If I’ve cut a wildflower bouquet from a nearby farm, I go for a more multicolored look, with lots of different colors of the Dusen Dusen cloth napkins I bought for my son’s Bar Mitzvah and a yellow checkered tablecloth and sage green plates. If someone brought over sunflowers, I’ll do a more tonal table with lots of orange-hued bowls and my vintage yellow Vignelli Hellerware plates.”

2. Cheap Thrills — “I look for serving pieces at the local thrift store and set a budget of, say, under $50, so I can be a little more free with setting the table. I recently bought a butter yellow three-piece serving platter that includes a shallow divot for dips and a spiral channel for olives.”

3. Opposites Attract — “I usually mix earthy materials — like terrazzo platters or cement candle holders — with elevated stainless steel pieces, like this portable lamp from Zara Home or a Georg Jensen vase.”

4. Paper Trail — “I go to a million brand dinners, and one thing that’s fun to copy is that there’s always a printed menu. I went to a really sweet Big Night dinner at Brooklyn Grange last summer, and they had not only printed a menu but also sent us home with a booklet of recipes! I asked my 10-year-old daughter if she wanted to recreate some of those recipes and have a ‘brand dinner’ for the beaded bracelets she sells on the beach with her two best friends. She made a little menu on Canva, and we had their families over. It was so cute, and having printed materials really kicked the place-setting up a notch. We just printed them out and cut them down to size — nothing fancy!”

Here’s to slowing down and feeling something special. — Team OTH

Standout LINENS.

1. Hawkins New York hand-dyed cotton napkins with fringed edges; 2. Embroidered placemats from H&M (you could also find similar secondhand); 3. Oeuvres Sensibles x Porta hand-stitched tablecloth, made-to-order using vintage linen; 4. Gohar World cocktail napkins, crafted by a women’s cooperative in Cairo using à jour openwork stitching.

Smart CUTLERY.

1. H&M Home stainless steel cutlery rests; 2. Service Projects Canteen Cutlery; 3. Soho Home stonewash soup spoons; 4. Alessi Itsumo butter knife designed by Naoto Fukasawa.

Iconic GLASSES + BARWARE.

1. Pewter tumblers handcrafted in the UK, to be used for drinks or as decor; 2. Nebulae Jewelry Apéro Picks, crafted from recycled sterling silver; 3. Sophie Lou Jacobsen Swarovski crystal-embellished cocktail coupes; 4. Il Buco artisan-made Simple Glasses.

Charming DISHES + BOWLS.

1. East Fork Maraschino Cake Plate, made exclusively for Big Night in limited quantities; 2. Enza Fasano hand-painted pasta bowl; 3. TOAST Contrast-Rim Enamel Picnic Bowl, with a small amount of color variation from batch to batch; 4. Louise Roe + Sophia Roe S.R. Collection hand-turned ceramic plates.

Collectible SERVING THINGS.

1. Dexam Sinatra Oval Serving Platter, hand-crafted from terracotta; 2. Natalia Criado Artefacto plated brass Serving Set; 3. Georg Jensen Alfredo Bread Basket with Art Nouveau design; 4. Poterie Barbotine Marbled Dish handmade in southern France from locally sourced clay.

Stylish TABLETOP ADD-ONS.

1. Hawkins New York Essential Metal Candle Holders made from powder-coated iron; 2. A vintage-inspired Glacee Butter Dish by HueGah Home; 3. Pygmalion hand-poured Botanist Candle; 4. Emma Chamberlain x West Elm Fabric-Wrapped Vases, designed for silk florals like these.

Misc.—ie: THE GOOD STUFF.

1. House & Parties Produce Label Place Cards, because who doesn’t love a seating arrangement that comes with a party favor?; 2. Smythson Menu Cards with engraved black lettering — the less perfect the handwriting, the better; 3. Wolf & Badger hand-bound leather Dinner Party Book (pre-Instagram, the best hosts kept dinner party diaries); 4. Cozy/cute Herman Miller Girard Throw… Hear me out: Last weekend, while having dinner at Borgo, I casually mentioned how cold it was inside. No less than five minutes later, the maître d’ offered up a cashmere blanket to drape over my bare shoulders. An A+ move that’s forever burned into my brain.

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