The Best Kind Of Tablecloth For Parties, According To Ina Garten

Well known mostly as the host of Food Network's "Barefoot Contessa," Ina Garten is a force to be reckoned with (albeit a relaxed one) in the kitchen. She has authored 13 cookbooks as of October 2022, and developed more than 1,000 recipes between those books and her TV show. However, her taste in décor has not been overlooked, so she has shared many tips across her social media and interviews for setting the perfect table, starting with the tablecloth.

During a visit with NBC's morning show "Today," Garten showed co-anchors Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie how setting the table for a dinner party — large or small — can be easy. The round table on the show was covered with a basic white tablecloth, but she draped a large, deep blue square of fabric on top for color. She tries to choose a solid color that's easy to use in a theme, which she demonstrated with the contrast of white plates and napkins that have deep blue accents to match the tablecloth.

In a different interview with Williams Sonoma on YouTube about entertaining for Thanksgiving, Garten explained that the key to decorating a table is to "keep it really simple. Choose one color, and follow through. Otherwise, it can get too busy, and it's too complicated ... Simple is better." You can see an example of this in one of her Thanksgiving Facebook posts, too.

Despite how it seems, the tablecloth color isn't always the first thing that Ina Garten uses as the basis of her table décor theme. Sometimes, the centerpiece is the anchor, so she focuses on one color with pops of greenery. Garten likes to use water glasses instead of vases for flowers, too, noting how she thinks that it's important to keep the central décor low so that all of her guests can see each other. You can use a bowl of fruit instead of flowers like she did with lemons on "Today."

With a loose color theme in mind, Garten mixes up her dinnerware, glassware, and chairs to create a simple and elegant presentation. Another of Garten's tips for organizing a perfect dinner party is using a round table so that everyone is an equal distance from each other. She assigns her most talkative guests across the table from each other so that the conversation flows to everyone rather than just part of the table.

Along with Garten's default dishes for easy, elegant dinner parties, she doesn't like to put the food on the table. Instead, she lays everything out in a nearby buffet so that her guests can help themselves rather than pass heavy platters around the table. Similarly, Garten shares pro tips for stocking the perfect bar cart for her guests to mix cocktails how they like them.