Buying Cutlery

If you thought that a great dining experience was all about good food, good company, good conversation and great wine, well think again! The delight of fine dining is not always about food or company as much as it is about the table spread, linen napkins, good china, expensive crystals and sterling silverwares. Whether you are looking for a fine dining experience or a more casual table d’hôte, know that no dinner is complete without knife, fork and spoon. Flatware, as cutlery is customarily addressed to, is an indispensable part of all table settings. Not only do they add to the elegance of your dinnerware, these utility items rank high on functionality and can turn even the blandest of dinner into fine dining experience. Does not matter if you are someone who loves to treat your guests with occasional dinners or one who loves to lead a bohemian life, a cutlery set is an indispensable add-on to every kitchen. Consider the following tips while choosing your cutlery and turn your everyday dining into a fine experience.

How To Buy Cutlery

Unless your dinner centers around chopsticks, finger-food, feasting on expensive bistros or cutlery-free noshing, you are going to need a good cutlery set to go with your fine dining experience. Before you hop into some cutlery shop and grab the first cutlery set that catches your fancy, pause to consider the design for a while. With cutlery options ranging from urban to traditional to contemporary and more, it is important that you buy yourself a set that not only suits your personality and lifestyle, but also complements your crystal wares and table linen. If you are looking for utilitarian buy, then getting yourself irreplaceable lifetime patterns will do fine.
Another crucial thing to consider when picking your cutlery set is to get enough knives, forks and spoons to correspond with the number of your china or dinnerware. Getting a complete hostess set or the more economical 12-piece set should do well. After all, you would not really like to be stuck with a missing knife or a twisted spoon when laying dinner for the guests. So make sure you have enough spare replacements to avoid last minute embarrassment.
Does not matter if you are single and swear by one fork, one spoon and one knife, know that your cutlery items would wear out with everyday use. So, apart from getting the trio, make sure you add a dinner fork, a knife, a salad fork, a teaspoon and soupspoon to your cutlery list as well. Repeated usage of a spoon or a fork wearies them out.
Sterling silver and gold plated flatware can add to the elegance of your feasts. However, know that these priceless silverwares are susceptible to chipping and flaking and can get dull overtime. As such, in addition to buying cutlery, you would also need to invest on specially designed boxes to store your silver and gold plated dinnerware, which is any day an expensive bet. Alternately, stainless cutlery is any day a durable option against the more fragile silver or gold coated cutlery. Stainless cutlery is rust resistant and dishwasher safe and is resistant to stain, scratch, nicks and dents. What’s more, they are easy to clean too. So before you blow big bucks to buy your cutlery, do not forget to consider durability over beauty.
It is always good to do some prior homework when picking your cutlery. Before you go shop-hopping, check out different department stores, house ware divisions and even flatware distributors for price. Also, make sure that the store from where you buy your cutlery has return policies. Always remember to deal with reputable companies when making your purchases online.

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