THE LOOK BOOK: DINNER by Goodfellows At Home

Bringing home the restaurant look has never been easier, thanks to Goodfellows At Home.

The UK’s top chefs know where to go for inspirational restaurant designs – G&G Goodfellows. Owned by Valda and Paul Goodfellow, G&G Goodfellows supplies Britain’s best restaurants with tableware, crockery, glassware and cutlery to help the hottest chefs achieve their dream restaurant look – everything from classic and elegant to fun and playful.

Now the company has launched Goodfellows at Home so food lovers can wine and dine in style too – in the comfort of their own homes. Offering originality and a taste of luxury, this new initiative makes tableware collections used by the best chefs available to anyone who wants to bring the restaurant look to their own home. Here they show you how it can be done …

THE LOOK BOOK: DINNER
Tonight’s look is inspired by the tableware found at Kenny Atkinson’s Michelin-starred restaurant, House of Tides, in Newcastle. The colour scheme is moody, with dark browns, greens and purple tableware, which we’ve lifted with bold flowers for a pop of colour, creating a Great Expectations meets Game of Thrones vibe.

PLAN YOUR DISHES
We want our dishes to match our theme but also complement the food we’ll be serving. On the menu tonight is a fish dish so we go for plates with strong colours that can really lift the dish.

Just one plate is not enough for this look, by layering a few together we add another dimension and create a beautiful mixture of patterns and colours to complement the theme. This works well for simple food dishes with subtle tones.

CREATE YOUR COLOUR SCHEME
As we have chosen darker tones in our tableware – stony greys and earthy blacks – we decide to inject a bit of fun into the table setting with a bold accent colour to brighten the look. We found the most beautiful hot pink flowers to float in a little planet bowl for an extra touch of colour. The difference it makes is amazing; it adds drama, introduces a ‘feeling’ for the table and really pulls our theme together. So simple but effective.

Colour pops can also be made with napkins, table centrepieces and glassware to break up the table with eye-catching impact as the burst of colour lifts the setting and brings out the detail in the tableware.

SET THE TABLE
It does save time (and dishes) to plate everything up in the kitchen – but we want this dinner party to be social and relaxed, with people helping themselves to the food, so we bring in extra pots and dishes for the side salads and vegetables. For colourful dishes like these, we stick to one base colour that has some texture or detail.

We also add small character ramekins onto the table for the sauces and condiments. It’s another way of injecting colour and texture whilst adding a professional finish. Little touches like these can make all the difference.

For the cutlery, we alternate between two finishes of bronze and silver. The muted metallics are perfect for our Great Expectations/Game of Thrones vibe.

One of the most striking elements on the table is the centrepiece of flowers. It looks freshly picked, bright and wild which adds a little bit of ‘tension’ into the arrangement by not being too symmetrical. We want this look to be put together but not too formal.

We pop open a bottle of champagne and pour some into flutes, then arrange some crab blinis on a wooden server board – the perfect aperitif to welcome our guests!

SPARK CONVERSATION
When you bring dinner guests together who might not know each other, it’s important to get the conversation flowing right away. We’ve made it easy for our guests by setting the table in a unique way to get the conversation going. They admire the floating pink flowers, the layered plates, the table centrepiece – really, by doing this in advance we’ve created a more relaxed feel around the table and as a result there are no awkward silences.

Now, all that’s left to do is eat!

All products are available to buy online from www.goodfellowsathome.com