Ina Garten’s Numbered Plates Offer a Unique Way to Seat Dinner Guests

Celebrity chef Ina Garten provides a plethora of inspiration when it comes to creating dinner party menus and tablescapes. And for a recent summer dinner party, Garten chose to set the table with numbered dinner plates, and they definitely belong on your event-planning Pinterest board.

“Remembering a really fun dinner party on Saturday night!” Garten captioned her July 10 Instagram post. “This was my summer table setting with blue hydrangeas, green zinnias, and fresh mint from the garden. The table was so small and cozy that the napkins wouldn’t fit so I just tucked them under the plates.”

The plates are by one of Garten’s favorite ceramic artists Melissa Goldstein, whose work has been featured on Garten’s Instagram feed before. (The vases holding the hydrangeas in Garten’s photo are from Goldstein’s studio, too.)

When commenters on Garten’s post asked what the numbers are used for, Goldstein replied, “they are a way of animating a table, people have played games or used as seating assignments.”

Numbered plates would be such a fun way to assign seats at a small wedding — a chart at the front of the venue could tell guests their number. Or, as Goldstein mentioned, these plates would come in really handy for dinner party question-and-answer games or even murder mystery and other roleplaying games.

Goldstein works in small batches, so Garten was lucky enough to pick up an entire set from the artist when she got the chance. But there are some ceramic artists selling similar personalized plates that could create a similar effect.