The popular saying goes, “You are what you eat.” But it may be more accurate in the food industry to say, “You are what you eat with.” Diners judge restaurants by a lot of different factors – the taste of the food, the quality of the service, the ambiance. One small detail that sometimes gets overlooked, but that can significantly affect customer comfort and satisfaction, is what they are eating with – the flatware and utensils.
In fact, survey data shows that customers are willing to pay more for a meal served with high-quality silverware. When it comes to choosing flatware for a restaurant there are a lot of options to choose from. In this blog, we will look at what types of spoons, forks, knives, and more, there are in the dining world, and what your specific restaurant might need for serving customers. In the next blog, we’ll go into more detail regarding how to choose silverware and what quality, materials, colors, and designs to look for.
Tableware is Relatively New to the World of Modern Dining
Using cutlery is actually a fairly recent innovation in human history. Until the 17th century, people worldwide ate most solid food with their hands or, in Asia, with chopsticks. What’s interesting, is that research actually shows that eating with one’s hands is healthier. Apparently the bacteria on the hand can actually aid digestion – although it’s definitely a bad idea to try and sell your patrons on enjoying a saucy spaghetti bolognese with their bare hands.
Modern utensil use has an interesting backstory. For starters, people used to use the same knife for fighting, as they did for cutting their meat at the table. The modern, rounded, less-sharp table knife was an innovation created by Cardinal Richelieu in 1637 France. He apparently felt safer, in the political climate he ruled in, without hunting knives at the table.
Forks also have a deadly history. Around 1000 CE, Maria Agryopolunia, a Byzantine royal, brought a case of golden forks with two tines to a family wedding. Later, Agryopolunia died from disease. St Peter Damian, then the Bishop of Ostia, lambasted Agryopolunia’s fork use. In a pamphlet entitled De Instituione Monialis, Damian claimed that the fork was a decadent invention and that its tines resembled the devil’s horns. Fork use only became widespread some 500 years later when King Henry II’s wife, Catherine De Medici, encountered them in Italy and adopted them as a trend in France. By the 1800’s, when the four tined fork was invented, using utensils had become the norm.
What Utensils Do You Really Need?
Today, the most common utensils are the fork, knife, and spoon. But, even these categories aren’t so simple. For example, there are more than 50 types of spoons, including spoons used for cooking, spoons for measuring, serving spoons, soup spoons, dessert spoons, grapefruit spoons, and even a special type of spoon for eating caviar. There are also 35 fork varieties, with special forks for carving, fondue, crab, and salad. Additionally, there are combo utensils, like the spork, which Rhode Islander Samuel France invented in 1874 and the knork, a knife/fork combo, invented by MIke Miller, an eighth-grade kid who wanted to cut his pizza and eat it too.
So, what flatware do you actually need for your restaurant? It depends on the type of restaurant you run, formal, casual, family-style, and what you plan on serving, but here are some common varieties of table flatware.
There are More than 35 Types of Forks (But you Don’t Need Them all)
The most well-known, versatile, and everyday fork is called a dinner fork. It’s the standard main course fork, usually around nine inches long and with three or four tines. Dinner forks typically have slender times and rounded edges since they’re primarily intended for “spearing” an entree, rather than cutting it. That’s in contrast to the salad fork, which has slightly sharper and flatter edges that allow diners to “saw” at larger pieces of lettuce and vegetables in their salad.
Salad forks are shorter and fatter than dinner forks (about seven inches long) and are often used for appetizers or side dishes. Salad forks are similar to dessert forks, which are about the same size, but come in slightly different shapes, depending on their specific purpose. For example, pastry forks have a left tine that is sharp, flat, and optimized for slicing pastry crusts, and cake forks are three-tined.
Steak forks are similar to dinner forks in size, but they have sharper tines since dinners need to be able to spear and hold textured meats with them. Steak forks often have a handle made from a material that is easier to grip as well.
There’s another category of forks that you might see when dining out at fish restaurants. These seafood forks come in a variety of shapes and sizes, like the oyster fork, which has sharp, tight tines, used for pulling meat from oyster shells. Oyster forks are also used for pickles and garnishes. Fish forks are similar to dinner forks but slightly square-shaped and optimized for separating fish from bones, whereas escargot forks are two-tined and used for eating snail or serving cocktail appetizers. Crab and lobster crackers are a type of utensil that is similar to a nutcracker and meant for removing the shell from a cooked shellfish.
So, which of these forks is worthwhile for an eatery to invest in when setting their tables? It depends on what food they are serving and who they are serving it to. Casual and semi-formal restaurants usually only require the basic dinner fork, and a salad fork, which can be used for everything from salad, to sides, to appetizers, and even desserts. However, a more formal establishment, where the clientele are educated about fine dining, will want separate salad forks and dessert forks. Steakhouses and places that serve dense cuts of meat might want to provide guests with tabletop steak forks and seafood eateries will want to look at what is on their menu and select the appropriate seafood utensils. Additionally, it might be helpful for places that offer shared sides, cocktail-style food, pickles, olives, or garnishes, to pick up oyster, cocktail, or escargot forks, although they usually don’t need as many of these as they do of dinner forks.
“Platoons” of Spoons
Spoons are the most common category of cutlery. With more than 50 types of spoons out there, some of which are kitchenware, others that are for serving, and still more that are set on the table, which of these do you need for your place settings?
The tablespoon (not to be confused with the measurement tablespoon), also called a dinner spoon, is an extremely common and versatile spoon, used for rice, fruits, desserts, and other similar foods. It has a shallow bowl, is ovular in shape, and is about the same length as a dinner fork.
Soup spoons are also about nine inches long, but they are rounder and deeper, so they can hold an appreciable amount of soup. There are also a few soup spoon variations, including bouillon spoons, which are even rounder and deeper, and Asian soup spoons, which have thicker handles and longer bowls. Asian soup spoons are usually colorful and often made from a non-metal material like melamine or china.
For desserts and drinks, restaurants will want to provide a smaller spoon. Teaspoons are about six inches long, and are used for stirring tea and coffee. They can also be used for eating appetizers, sides, and desserts. They are similar to dessert spoons, which are a little longer and deeper than teaspoons. However, most casual to semi-casual eateries use tea and dessert spoons interchangeably. Within the teaspoon and dessert spoon family is the grapefruit spoon, which has a more tapered, and sometimes slightly serrated edge. It’s used for eating sliced grapefruit in its rind, but can also be used for eating melons and kiwis.
Aside from teaspoons, there are other spoons traditionally served alongside drinks. Iced tea spoons are thin and long handled. Although they were traditionally used to stir sugar into iced teas and other drinks served in tall glasses, today, they are also used for ice creams, parfaits, mousses and other similar desserts.
Demitasse spoons on the other hand are smaller and have shorter handles. These mini-spoons are about three to four inches long and used for stirring espressos and other drinks served in small demitasse cups.
An average silverware set contains a dinner spoon and a dessert spoon, but that may not be enough for your restaurants’ needs. Although teaspoons and dessert spoons can be used interchangeably (outside of the most formal settings), other spoons have specific functional benefits that can’t be met with these spoon shapes. If you serve soup at your eatery, you will definitely need bouillon or soup spoons. If you have fruit-based entrees or desserts, you may need to invest in grapefruit spoons. Places that serve ice cream or similar desserts will want iced tea spoons, and cafes with espresso, cappuccino, or Turkish coffee on the menu might benefit from having demitasse spoons that are the perfect size for those drinks.
What About Table Knives?
Although hundreds of years ago, people brought their hunting knives to the table with them, today we have more sanitary and delicate tableware for cutting. The most common knife, and the backbone of any cutlery set is the dinner knife. This is your average table knife – long and thin, with a blunt serrated edge. Its cousin is the dessert knife which is a bit smaller, but largely interchangeable.
Another knife you might spot on the table is a butter knife. This knife is built for slicing through and spreading cheese, butter and jam and is wide and has rounded edges.
Other tableware knives function as more specialized tools. The fish knife, for example, is a must-have for a formal seafood eatery. It has a pointed tip and is intended for cutting fish meat from bones. Places that serve steaks and similar whole cuts of meat will want to provide diners with a sharp, serrated steak knife. These knives often feature wooden or plastic handles and are intended for cutting dense portions of meat.
When it comes to refreshing your tableware knife collection, casual and semi-formal places don’t need separate dessert and dinner knives. Breakfast cafes, and places that serve bread alongside the meal, will want butter knives, seafood places will want fish knives, and steakhouses and similar restaurants will want to purchase a set of steak knives.
Beyond the Fork, Spoon, and Knife
Of course, the fork, spoon, and knife are the most common tableware triad. But they aren’t the only genre of cutlery.
For example, Chinese, Japanese, and other Asian cuisine is often eaten with chopsticks. Chopsticks are actually one of the oldest utensils, possibly dating back 5,000 years, and they are still common today. If you have an Asian restaurant, it’s a good idea to place chopsticks, and possibly chopstick rests (to hold the sticks when they are not in use) on the table. However chopstick etiquette can be pretty tricky. Some diners haven’t mastered the use of these eating implements and need a fork to eat comfortably, whereas others consider themselves chopstick prodigies and will be offended if the server automatically assumes they need traditional Western silverware to master their sushi or dim-sum. One way around this, if your restaurant primarily caters to diners who aren’t used to Asian food, is to equip each guest with the full range of entree silverware, including chopsticks and forks. A restaurant that caters ti a certain customer base, for example a Chinese eatery located in an area with many Chinese immigrants who are familiar with chopstick eating, may be able to get away with only providing chopsticks and a spoon, and let patrons who want a fork, ask for it.
Another cutlery genre that is also customer-specific is child silverware. Family friendly eateries may want to invest in smaller silverware that children can use more ergonomically. Although many restaurants just provide younger diners with dessert spoons and salad forks, a place that caters to families might want to look for colorful, plastic toddler cutlery, or silverware specifically designed for kids.
Servingware Utensils for Every Occasion
Outside of the tableware that each diner receives, there’s a whole category of flatware used for serving food. These are relevant to caterers, places that offer buffet, and trendy places that prepare food tableside. These are the most common servingware pieces that may be relevant to a food establishment’s needs:
Serving spoons: These are extra large spoons with long handles and deep bowls meant for moving food from a serving dish to an individual plate.
Slotted spoons: These are similar to serving spoons, but they have holes in them to allow liquid to drain out.
Serving forks: These are long handled, tined utensils used for serving solid foods like meats and other entrees.
Bread knives: Bread knives are serrated and used for slicing bread. Some establishments that serve bread as a starter may provide a bread knife tableside.
Pie servers: Flat and triangular shaped, these instruments are used to serve pies, pastries, cakes, and similar foods.
Serving ladles: Ladles are the bouillon spoon of the servingware world. They are rounded, deep, and have very long handles meant for ladling soup out of a pot and into an individual bowl.
Serving tongs: Tongs come in many varieties, but the ones that are mostly likely to appear at buffets or similar meals, on the table, are salad tongs or spaghetti tongs used for grasping foods like salad or spaghetti.
Overall, these are hundreds of cutlery types out there. Most restaurants will need the basics – a table fork, a dinner fork, knife, and a teaspoon and tablespoon. However, formal eateries may want to wow their more educated diners by providing more specified utensils, for example having a separate style spoon for dessert than for espresso. Seafood restaurants will want to consider what is on their menu and which seafood utensils are needed, and Asian restaurants will definitely want to provide chopsticks and possibly Asian soup spoons.
The type of cutlery each restaurant needs is really dependent on what they serve and whether diners expect to have different shaped spoons for each entree, dessert, and appetizer option. In addition to these common utensils, restaurants can purchase specialty items separately and can also find standalone forks, knives, or spoons, in bulk to replace or supplement what they already have. And, whereas this blog focused on standard restaurant cutlery in all its variations, the next blog will discuss how to choose specific types of flatware, taking into account elements like design, quality, and materials.
At the end of the day, diners expect clean, quality silverware that is suited to the type of food they are eating. For the restaurant, acquiring these items is a simple, and relatively inexpensive way to please diners and keep them coming back for more.