10 Things to Consider When Buying Plates
If you’re anything like us, your very first set of trusty plates were a budget buy that lasted until they were scuffed and chipped beyond recognition. While they may have served their purpose, you’re now thinking about an upgrade. We support you in your journey—both for aesthetic reasons, and for your safety (plateware that cracks or chips easily is a serious health hazard).
So, if you want to eat lovingly prepared roasted chicken and spaghetti with red sauce off of your new plates for years to come, you need to do a little research.
We recommend reading the full guide in order to choose the best plates you can find, but if you’re in a hurry, the big takeaway is this: Sturdy, high-quality plates tend to cost a little more than your standard big box store options, but they will last longer, look and hold up better, be safer, and save you money in the long run.
What Kind of Plates Do You Need?
When it comes to plates, one size does not necessarily fit all. The 4 main plate varieties are the Dinner Plate, the Appetizer Plate, the Entrée Bowl, and the Bread and Butter Plate, each named according to the course it’s designed for. Here’s how to decide which of these you need.
Dinner Plates
Typically around 10 inches in diameter, Dinner Plates should be just big enough to fit a protein or other main, along with a couple of sides. Anything smaller risks feeling crowded, while anything larger would leave a lot of unwanted empty space and possibly even veer into Serving Platter territory. Basically, a Dinner Plate should make your dinner look bountiful, without allowing it to overflow.
Unless your typical dinner consists of tapas or other small, shareable plates (which we'd honestly be super on board with), a Dinner Plate should be your go-to for serving any kind of entrée, from hearty salads to pastas to steak and potatoes.
Entrée Bowls
If you’re in the habit of Instagramming your restaurant meals, we’ll bet Entrée Bowls make a frequent cameo. Typically about 10 inches across—the same size as a Dinner Plate—this wide, shallow not-quite-bowl is increasingly popular for its ability to make your entrée pop. High walls keep soupier entrées from leaking or splashing.
With its unique shape, the Entrée Bowl is the perfect halfway point between a bowl and a plate (we affectionately call them “blates” for this very reason). Chefs use them to showcase everything from a perfect coil of spaghetti carbonara to a composed salad or grain bowl, and we also love to use them for enjoying soups and stews. The low sides also make it easier to dip a spoon into your soup, so you don’t have to tip the bowl in order to scrape out the last bits of your Bouillabaisse. Plus, we just feel a little more glamorous every time we eat out of one of them.
Appetizer Plates
Usually measuring around 8 inches across, an Appetizer Plate—sometimes called a salad plate—sits right between a Bread and Butter Plate and a Dinner Plate, size-wise. These plates are just big enough to hold a small portion of salad, some cheese and crackers, or a couple of loaded crostini. They also offer the perfect amount of surface area for messier apps like mussels or burrata drizzled with olive oil without feeling unwieldy.
They’re especially helpful for casual entertaining, when guests need to be able to comfortably hold food in one hand while clutching a glass of wine or a cocktail in the other. They’d be the ultimate pick for hosting an at-home tapas party—or if you’ve hopped on the snacks-for-dinner train.
Bread and Butter Plates
The most petite plate size, Bread and Butter Plates—which usually measure 6 inches or so across—are made for exactly what you’d think: a single piece of bread, a roll, or a similarly sized piece of food. You’re probably used to seeing them at restaurants, where they’re sometimes swapped out after the bread course/basket. This size is also useful for serving dainty hors d’oeuvres, amuse bouches, and other extra small plates. While Bread and Butter Plates are a couple of inches smaller than an Appetizer Plate, you could certainly swap them for each other in a pinch.
In addition to bread or other pre-meal bites, we might use these for serving accompaniments like soft butter or pickled vegetables. They’re also handy for serving side dishes (if you don’t already have a designated set of Side Bowls) or even for a delicate dessert like truffles or petits fours.
4 Factors of the Best Plates
Once you’ve figured out what size plates you need, it’s important to think about what type of construction you’re looking for. In the restaurant industry, plateware is considered high quality if it can hold up for years, go in the dishwasher without chipping or cracking, tolerate temperature fluctuations (i.e. is thermal shock resistant), and maintain its beautiful glazed finish over time. The same guidelines apply to home cooks.
Anti-Chip Properties
Chips commonly occur with Plateware that hasn’t been vitrified, or heated to boiling point before being fired in a kiln. Vitrified plates have a lower porosity than non-vitrified plates, resulting in a stronger overall construction that’s much more resistant to chipping. Chipped plates aren’t just unsightly: they can also pose a hazard to your health. Not only will chipped Plateware continue to shed small bits of material and glaze into your food, but the exposed clay underneath can start to absorb liquids and harbor bacteria.
While Made In’s plates are fully vitrified and chip resistant, we still offer a 1-year no-chip warranty: if your plates somehow do end up chipping, we’ll replace the entire set.
Dishwasher Safe
Whether you’re buying plates for everyday use or for special occasions, an important point to consider is whether or not they’re dishwasher safe. Not all plates are built to withstand the high temperatures and strong detergents of the dishwasher—many are prone to warping, chipping, or cracking. Because ours is fully vitrified, each piece is fully dishwasher-safe, so you can spend less time standing over the sink after dinner.
High-Quality Construction
When shopping for Plateware, it’s important to understand what the term “high quality” actually means. Generally, a high-quality piece of cookware shouldn’t just be beautiful—it should be incredibly durable as well. Made In’s Plateware is made in Stoke-on-Trent, where pottery has been an art form for hundreds of years. Made from local English clay, the pieces undergo 360-degree glazing. Our manufacturing partner, which historically has only offered their plateware to restaurant customers, glazes their china plateware all the way around, including the base—often called the “foot”—which typically goes unfinished.
This is done for practical reasons in addition to aesthetic ones: while an unfinished foot can cause scratching when the plates are stacked, a glazed foot prevents this. 360-degree glazing is more laborious and costly, but it also makes the plates oven (and microwave) safe up to 580F and prevents scratching when stacked.
Thermal Shock Resistance
The fully-glazed finish on our ceramic plates and bowls doesn’t just prevent scratching—along with the vitrification process, it also makes the pieces thermal shock resistant. Thermal shock resistance is especially important in restaurants, where hot food needs to be plated quickly so it can make its way to the customer before it cools off. Restaurants often heat plates in the oven to assist in this, and to prevent delicate sauces from breaking.
Thermal shock occurs when an object—such as a piece of pottery—is not strong enough to withstand sudden temperature changes. This can also occur when you put a hot plate in the freezer (luckily, Made In’s Plateware is both freezer-safe and dishwasher-safe).
How Many Plates Do You Need?
A standard dinner service includes enough places for 8 people—though you may need more or less depending on your household size and the average number of plates you’re using per meal.
Since we know that not everyone serves a bread course or an appetizer course with dinner, we also highly recommend getting creative with the different sizes. We would definitely use the Appetizer Plates for breakfast or dessert, for example, or break out the Bread and Butter plates for a midnight snack in bed.
Along with your everyday Plateware, we also recommend having one or two Service Pieces in your collection: even if you don’t regularly entertain, you’ll want a solid Serving Bowl to use for big salads, family-style dishes, or buttered popcorn on movie nights.
How Much Do High-Quality Plates Cost?
Now that you know what goes into a quality piece of ceramic Plateware, let’s talk about pricing. You can easily spend just a few dollars apiece on plates, and while that might do fine in a pinch, those looking to build out their home kitchen with sturdy, hard-wearing pieces will probably want to invest a bit more. A great place to start is with a 4-piece set of Made In Dinner Plates, which runs just over $100 and comes with both a lifetime warranty and the aforementioned one year no-chip guarantee. You can also go for the 20-Piece Tabletop Set, which runs about $600 and comes with all the Plateware, Flatware, and Serving Pieces you’ll need for a lifetime of dinners (and lunches, and breakfasts).
Our Recommended Plateware
Hopefully, all that information showed you that even if you’re not running a restaurant, you still deserve a well-crafted, long-lasting set of plates. If you’re starting a wedding registry, or just investing in quality dinnerware you won’t have to replace after a few months, Made In’s fully-vitrified ceramic Plateware is a solid bet.
The best plates should be stylish enough for a dinner party, durable enough for everyday use, and as far as I’m concerned, shouldn’t require you to purchase a whole dinnerware set to get them.
Sure, fully-coordinated sets are fine if you don’t want to put too much thought into your dishes, but the best dinnerware set is really the one you build yourself, mixing and matching your favorite pieces, whether they’re from a variety of makers or a single tableware line. Either way, you won’t be stuck with tea cups and soup bowls you’ll never use.
Since the dinner plate is the foundation of any table setting, I set out to find the best plates in a variety of materials, including stoneware, porcelain, bone china, and even melamine. I spent way too much time researching popular and promising dinner plates, then ordered all of my top picks based on construction, style, functionality, and price point. For weeks, I used and sometimes abused these nine plates in my own kitchen. What I found is below. (And yes, I noted which ones can be purchased as part of a matchy-matchy set.)
The best everyday plates: Crate & Barrel’s Mercer Dinner Plates
Crate & Barrel’s Mercer Dinner Plates are perfect for everyday dinnerware because they manage to feel both casual and special at the same time. They look like they might have been handmade in someone’s studio, but are actually mass produced and cost just six bucks a piece (as I write this, anyway). If you break one, they’re cheap and easy to replace. They’re big—11 inches in diameter—with a very faint lip so you don’t lose any surface area to the edge. And because the rim is so minimal, you can stack a bunch of these without taking up too much vertical space. After using them at home as everyday plates—and putting them through the dishwasher, stacking them with plates of other shapes and sizes, and letting my kids eat off of them—I haven’t chipped, scratched, or broken one yet. They come in three colors (white, gray, and blue) and for a dollar more each, you can get one with a blue or black rim. In addition to being dishwasher-safe, they’re safe to use in the microwave and in the oven up to 350ºF.
How they’re sold
You can buy these plates as individual pieces or in a set of eight, allowing you to mix and match colors or replace just one if need be. While the Mercer dishware line includes just about every piece imaginable, it’s not available as part of a complete dinnerware set. I prefer it this way because you can build a set with just pieces you actually need, and not be stuck with bowls or mugs you don’t want.
The best stoneware plates: West Elm’s Kaloh Stoneware Dinner Plates
There’s nothing fancy about West Elm’s Kaloh stoneware dinner plates, and that’s why I love them so much. When I think “stoneware,” I think of the stuff from the ’70s and ’80s, usually in shades of brown, yellow, and orange, and often with an ornate floral design in the center. These 10-inch dinner plates, a West Elm collaboration with British industrial designer Aaron Probyn, recall those vintage vibes with a natural—though more neutral—tone (the “white” is really more of a pale beige). They’re also thick and have a nice heft, as stoneware should. That said, they definitely feel more modern than your grandma’s stoneware plates thanks to a sleek but subtle rounded lip and a glossy scratch-resistant glaze. The outer edge and underside are more matte and textured, and that’s where you can get a pop of color if you want. These plates are dishwasher- and microwave-safe too. One thing to note: If you’re precious about your dining table, you may want to use a placemat with these because the unfinished bottom can leave incredibly faint surface scratches.
How they’re sold
Kaloh plates are available in sets of four or eight, and West Elm also offers a couple of Kaloh stoneware dinnerware sets, including a 20-piece set (which is four five-piece place settings) and a 44-piece bundle that comes with drinking glasses and flatware too.
Kaloh Stoneware Dinner Plates, Set of 4
The best porcelain plates: Public Goods’ Dinner Plates
I really tried to find porcelain plates I liked better than the Dinner Plates from Public Goods, a membership-based online retailer, but I couldn’t. These 10.5-inch plates are a true white and have the heft and shape of our favorite stoneware plate, above, but they’re slightly larger and smoother on bottom. They’re “high-fired” (which means both the porcelain and the glaze are extremely durable), and as such are microwave-safe, oven-safe to 350ºF, and freezer-safe. If you’re looking for a bright white plate that’s modern, roomy, and durable, you might consider signing up for a trial membership at Public Goods. If plates seem like an odd thing to get a membership for, know that wouldn’t be all you get. In addition to a limited selection of cooking tools and tableware, most of the brand’s wholesale-priced offerings are household items you replenish regularly, like cleaning products, toiletries, pet food, and pantry staples. You can even get wine!
How they’re sold
All of Public Goods’ white dinnerware is sold in sets of four. You can build your own porcelain dinnerware set with any of the coordinating pieces, including cereal bowls, salad plates (though Public Goods calls them lunch plates), and dinner bowls (a.k.a. pasta bowls).
Public Goods Dinner Plates, Set of 4
The best bone china plates: Jasper Conran for Wedgwood White Bone China Dinner Plates
If you want a bright white plate but prefer a classic shape to something more modern, the Jasper Conran for Wedgwood White Bone China Dinner Plates are timeless and elegant without feeling stuffy. Because they don’t have any embellishments, these plates can work with a variety of table setting styles and the high-quality bone china is actually quite strong. Bone china is chip-resistant, too, thanks to the presence of actual animal bone ash. I guess you could reserve these fine china plates for special occasions, but you don’t have to because they also make great everyday dinnerware (and yes, they’re dishwasher-safe). These plates have a 10.5-inch diameter and an elevated edge that makes the usable surface area about seven inches.
How they’re sold
These plates are sold as individual pieces, though you can pair them with coordinating pieces from Wedgwood’s Jasper Conran White line. There’s also a 16-piece dinner set, which has a four-piece place setting for four.
Jasper Conran for Wedgwood White Bone China Dinner Plate
The best ceramic plates: Our Place Main Plates
These porcelain ceramic dinner plates come from Our Place, maker of the Internet-famous Always Pan. The Main Plates’ simple shape and straight-sided lip feels modern, but the warm, hand-painted hues also make them feel like something your very cool aunt might have made in the ’70s. They feel lighter than they look and they’re surprisingly durable, thanks in part to a subtly speckled scratch-resistant (though not entirely scratchproof) glazed surface. With a 9.75-inch diameter, they’re on the smaller size for a dinner plate, but because of the straight-side lip, nearly all of that space is usable. The Main Plates are dishwasher- and microwave-safe, and I love that they stay fully vertical on the bottom rack of the dishwasher. They do get really hot in the microwave, though.
How they’re sold
The Main Plates come in sets of four. These plates are also available as part of a number of ceramic dinnerware sets, some include glassware. I regularly reach for the brand’s stackable drinking glasses and this 12-piece dinnerware set has four plates, four glasses, and four straight-sided bowls.
Our Place Main Plates Set of 4
The best oven-safe plates: Year & Day’s Big Plates
I’m a big fan of Year & Day’s oversized low serving bowl, so I was excited to try its minimalist coupe-style plates, which are simply called Big Plates. With a 10.7-inch diameter, the plates are pretty big, and because they’re rimless, all of that space is usable. While they aren’t handmade, they are “hand finished,” which gives them a modern look that’s casual, but definitely not too casual. Like the Year & Day serving platter and bowl, the Big Plates come in four fairly neutral colors inspired by the California coastline—each with a semimatte finish. Matte plates are prone to showing scratches, and if you try hard enough you can scratch the lighter colored Big Plates, but the marks are easily removed with Bar Keepers Friend. You can also avoid the issue altogether by buying these plates in the darkest color, Midnight. If you like to put your plates in the oven, Year & Day’s ceramics can handle temperatures all the way up to 480ºF. They’re also dishwasher- and freezer-safe, so if you need your dishes to hold up to every appliance in your kitchen, these are the plates for you.
How they’re sold
The Big Plates come in sets of four and as part of a 16-piece dinnerware set with the basics (Big Plates, Small Plates, Big Bowls, and Small Bowls), a 20-piece set with mugs, or a 40-piece set with stainless-steel flatware.
The best matte plates: Material Full Plates
If you like to take pictures of your food, a matte plate is often the best choice because you don’t have to worry about your lens picking up a glare. Unfortunately, without a glossy glaze, matte dishware is prone to showing scratches. But the earthy Full Plates from New York–based Material are subtly textured, which makes it nearly impossible to scratch them with everyday flatware—and believe me, I tried. Because they’re hand-finished, every 11-inch plate is perfectly imperfect, whether you choose the sandy Dune color or the dark, dramatic Grotto (currently on back order). They’re also thin and shallow, which makes them stackable, but the ceramic material is still durable and these plates feel like they could last forever. They’re absolutely the kind of plate you’d turn over in a restaurant to find out who makes them.
How they’re sold
Material’s Full Plates are sold individually or you can buy a full place setting, which comes with the Full Plate, the Half Plate (an 8-inch plate that could be a dessert plate or a salad plate) and the Open Bowl, an 8.5-inch coupe bowl.
The best cheap white plates: Amazon Basics White Dinner Plates
If you want a classic white plate but you don’t want to spend a lot, the Amazon Basics white dinner plates are timeless, durable, and affordable. Like the bone china Wedgwood plates, these are 10.5-inch plates and instead of a lip, they have a more classic elevated edge, leaving seven inches of usable space. The white is more of a grayish off-white than a true white, but unless you’re comparing it to a bright white plate, you likely won’t notice. Because they’re made of porcelain, which is very durable, they can go in the dishwasher, microwave, freezer, and the oven. And according to the product description, these plates can withstand temperatures as high as 572ºF, but my oven only goes to 500ºF so I wasn’t able to test that claim.
How they’re sold
These plates come in sets of six. For just $30. Yes, that’s a six-piece plate set for thirty bucks (at the time of publication, anyway).
Amazon Basics White Dinner Plates, Set of 6
The best melamine plates: West Elm Kaloh Melamine Plates
If you’re still using your parents’ hand-me-down Corelle tableware with your own kids just because it’s hard to break, it might be time for an upgrade to melamine. Specifically, West Elm’s Kaloh melamine plates. Melamine is a super hard, BPA-free plastic, and though it shouldn’t be subjected to really hot temperatures (so no microwave or oven), it’s otherwise nearly indestructible. In addition to being kid-friendly, melamine plates are the best choice for outdoor dining. And the thing I love most about the West Elm’s Kaloh melamine plates is how much they look like the Kaloh stoneware discussed above. Though the melamine version weighs less and has a smoother base than the stoneware, they’re the same shape and size and come in many of the same colors. You could intermingle both types in a stack and you’d have to get pretty close to notice which is which. So if you want kid-friendly plates that don’t scream, “I come from the Target Pillowfort line!” or if you want outdoor plates that look just like your indoor plates, these are the melamine plates for you.
How they’re sold
Like the Kaloh stoneware, you can buy the Kaloh melamine plates in sets of four. You can also build your own melamine dinnerware set on West Elm’s website.
Kaloh Melamine Dinner Plate, Set of 4