Some tables look composed. Others look assembled. The difference is usually a single plate nobody eats from. When guests sit down and every seat already carries a wide decorative disc, the room reads as considered before the first dish leaves the kitchen. So the question hosts ask us most is a fair one: what is a charger plate, and does your table genuinely need one. Here is the short answer, then the useful one.
Baci Milano has been drawing these pieces since 2006, when Silvia Arienti and Giovanni Colombo founded the house in Milan and named their studio Casa Baci. The 31 cm plate runs across the brand's collections, and it is the size that does the work.
What is a charger plate, exactly?
A charger is a base plate. It holds a place setting rather than food, and it stays put while courses arrive and depart above it. You will also see it sold as a presentation plate or a service plate — three names, one object, and the reason our own product pages now say charger rather than cake plate.
The measurement is what makes it function. At 31 cm across, it sits under a 28 cm dinner plate and leaves a visible ring of pattern about a centimetre and a half wide on every side. That ring is the whole point. It frames the meal, anchors the cutlery, protects the linen from heat and drips, and gives each guest a defined territory on a crowded table.
In our showroom it is the piece people reach for first, usually because a 31 cm plate standing at eye level reads as a design object rather than tableware. That instinct is correct. A charger is decor that happens to have a job.
Step 1: set the charger before anything else
Begin with an empty table and place one charger per seat, centred on the placemat and set roughly two centimetres in from the table edge. Work around the table before you touch anything else — spacing errors are obvious once plates and glassware are down, and invisible now.
Cutlery flanks the charger, not the dinner plate. Forks left, knives and spoons right, blades turned inward. The napkin either sits on the charger or to the left of the forks; on a narrow table, the charger is large enough that the napkin belongs beside it, not on it.
If your table is patterned or your linen is busy, a single-colour base restores order. The Versailles 31 cm charger does the opposite job well, carrying the Toile de Jouy scenic print that Baci Milano borrowed from the 19th-century workshops at Jouy-en-Josas, so the rest of the setting can stay plain.
Step 2: layer downward — dinner, soup, dessert
Layering a place setting is a subtraction exercise. The charger stays; everything above it changes.
A 28 cm dinner plate goes on first, leaving the reveal ring exposed. A 21 cm dessert or soup plate can stack on top of that for a formal three-tier opening, though two layers usually looks better than three unless your table is genuinely wide. Bowls sit inside the dinner plate, never directly on the charger, so nothing hot touches the decorated surface.
The advice we repeat most to hosts choosing a first charger is to buy the loud one and keep everything above it quiet. A red base beneath white plates reads as intentional; two competing patterns read as an accident. Le Rouge's red presentation plate is the clearest example — deep crimson underneath, plain porcelain on top, and the colour does all the talking. If you would rather run one scheme end to end, the matching set of four dinner plates keeps the tone unbroken.
Step 3: know when the charger leaves the table
There is no single rule, so pick one and apply it consistently through the meal. The traditional convention lifts the charger with the appetiser plates, before the main course arrives. The relaxed convention leaves it in place until dessert, then clears the whole stack at once.
Choose based on how you are serving. Plated courses from the kitchen suit the traditional approach, because the charger has done its welcoming job by the time the main arrives. Family-style dishes passed around the table suit keeping it down, since it catches everything a shared serving spoon drops.
Outdoors the calculation shifts again. On a patio or a backyard table, a matte-finish plate is the better base — gloss bounces afternoon light straight back into your guests' eyes, while matte holds its colour and stays readable. The Amazzonia charger brings the collection's stylised butterflies and tropical foliage to that setting without asking the rest of the tablescape to compete.
Step 4: put the 31 cm plate back to work after dinner
This is the part most guides skip, and it is why the plate earns its place in a cupboard. Once the setting is cleared, a charger becomes a serving piece. The diameter that framed a dinner plate is exactly right for a cake, a round of cheese, a spread of antipasti, or two dozen canapes arranged in concentric rings.
Used this way it moves to the centre of the table, or onto a sideboard where guests can help themselves. A raised rim keeps things where you put them. A patterned surface means you can serve something as plain as sliced fruit and still have it look composed.
The piece our clients order most often as a housewarming gift is the Dolce Vita Sun presentation plate, and the reason is precisely this double life — the smiling sun motif that Baci Milano showed at Ambiente Frankfurt works as a base plate on a set table and as a cake platter an hour later.
Choosing a charger that suits your table
Count first. Six covers most dinner parties, eight gives you room to grow, twelve is a long-table number. Buying in even multiples matters more than buying a large quantity.
Then decide whether the charger is the loudest thing on your table or the quietest. Pattern-forward pieces from the Versailles table-and-living scheme or Le Rouge's monochromatic red want restraint above them. If your dinner service already carries a strong design, choose a base that recedes and let the meal lead.
One practical note on the porcelain pieces: hand-wash anything with gold detailing or hand-decoration rather than running it through a machine cycle, and let plates cool to room temperature before stacking them. Thermal pressure on a warm stacked edge is the quiet cause of most chipped rims. Browse the full plates range to see how the 31 cm format sits alongside the dinner, soup and dessert sizes in each collection from Baci Milano, the Milanese design house that we have curated at Amprio Milano since the beginning.
About Amprio Milano
Amprio Milano is a Dubai-based destination for luxury tableware and home accessories. We curate seven European design houses — Baci Milano, Mario Luca Giusti, Seletti, Stories of Italy, Duccio Di Segna, Printworks and our own Simple Forms — and our team handles every piece we sell: unboxing, styling, gift-wrapping and advising hosts across the Gulf and worldwide.
Do you eat off a charger plate?
No. A charger is a base plate that holds the setting; food always arrives on a dinner, soup or dessert plate stacked on top of it. The one exception comes after the meal, when the same 31 cm plate can be repurposed as a serving platter for cake, cheese or canapes at the centre of the table.
What size should a charger plate be?
Thirty-one centimetres is the working standard, because it sits under a 28 cm dinner plate and leaves a visible ring of pattern roughly a centimetre and a half wide on every side. Anything narrower loses that frame; anything much wider crowds the cutlery and the glassware on a normal-width table.
How do you look after a decorated charger plate?
Hand-wash pieces with gold detailing or hand-decoration rather than putting them through a machine cycle, since repeated heat dulls applied decoration over time. Let plates cool fully before stacking them — thermal pressure on a warm rim is the most common cause of chipping. Store with a felt or paper separator between each plate.
If you are building a table this season, start with the Versailles 31 cm charger, Le Rouge's red presentation plate or the Amazzonia charger, and let the rest of the setting follow.
