The Generic European Place Setting

The generic European place setting has the water goblet and wine glasses placed on a diagonal on the right of the plate.  The last wine glass of the diagonal is placed above the fish knife.  The dessert fork and spoon might not be found on the table at all and may arrive with the dessert itself. 

The European style place setting has the bread plate placed to the upper left with the butter knife placed on the top side perpendicular to the forks below it.  Here again, some European cultures don't typically use a bread plate.  The individual salt and pepper shakers are placed in the area between the plate and the place card at the twelve o'clock position.  If you are using individual butter pats, they would be placed to the right of the bread plate. 

As mentioned previously, the flatware on the table reflects the various courses to be served.  To the left of the plate, the forks are placed in order of the courses served, starting from the left to the right.  That usually means the fish fork, then the main course fork and finally the salad fork.  Typically, the right side starts with a soup spoon, fish knife and then the main course knife.  Notice that there is no mention of a salad knife.     

Mr. Bowen is not very confident about his knowledge of what constitutes a "traditional" European table setting.  Europe consists of many countries and even more subcultures.  Typical sources for information of this type are not particularly helpful and vary depending upon the source.

Mr. Bowen suspects that anyone coming up with an exact European place setting guide is likely to be influenced by a particular subculture or be many pages in length.  The French have their own version of a place setting which differs from the generic European place setting.  That will be discussed next time.