The Golden Rule For Hosting That Ina Garten Never Breaks

published Mar 29, 2024
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Ina Garten headshot on colored background
Credit: Talaya Centeno/Getty Images

Many — heck, most — people dream of one day being invited to a dinner party hosted by Ina Garten. Imagine the food, the table, the guests! But until that invitation arrives (Harry Potter-style, I’m sure), you can at least follow her rules to make sure your own dinner party goes off without a hitch. And one of Garten’s golden rules is to always serve your guests using white plates.

“I definitely like white,” Garten told CNN in 2022. “The plate is really about what makes the food look best and I like it set against a white background. I never like plates that have patterns on them.”

How simple is that? Luckily, this rule is easy to follow because you likely already have a set of white dishes in your pantry. If not, you can always pick up an affordable set of six on Amazon. This set from 10 Strawberry Street is about as simple as it gets.

Of course, Garten has a few other essential hosting tips that make any gathering a good time. But the one that really sticks out (besides the white plates) is only inviting people you love.

“The first rule is that I only invite people I love,” Garten continued in her interview. “I never accept an invitation to somebody’s party if I don’t want to invite them back.” Now that is a hosting rule to live by.

We should definitely keep refreshing our emails and checking our mail boxes for that illustrious dinner party invite. But hosting our own friends, family, and loved ones using Garten’s rules as guidelines is arguably just as fabulous as being hosted by the culinary queen herself.