The Best Appetizer Plates

Appetizer plates are the piece of the hosting kit that people buy last and use most. The sequence is always the same: you build a beautiful spread, people arrive, and then eight guests stand around a board holding a single cracker each because there is nothing to put food on. Dinner plates are the wrong answer - at ten or eleven inches they are too big to hold in one hand, they make a modest spread look embarrassingly empty, and they encourage people to load up and sit down, which empties the board and kills the standing-around part of the party.

The category is simple enough that the choice comes down to three numbers: how wide the plate is, how many come in the set, and what it is made of. Everything else is decoration. Below we work through those three decisions, then five sets that each answer them differently - from a twelve-piece catering set for a real crowd to five-inch ceramic rounds for food you eat standing up.

How we judged these plates

We have not lab-tested dinnerware. These picks come from live listing data and the manufacturers' stated specifications, judged against five criteria that are specific to appetizer service rather than to dinnerware in general.

1. Can a guest hold it in one hand?

This is the criterion that separates an appetizer plate from a small dinner plate, and it is mostly about diameter and weight together. Up to about six and a half inches, a plate sits on four fingers with the thumb on the rim and leaves the other hand free for a glass. Past seven inches the plate wants two hands, or a table. A heavy stoneware plate hits that limit earlier than a light porcelain one of the same width.

2. How many come in the set

Plate counts are the most under-thought part of this purchase. A set of six serves four people at a party, because used plates get abandoned on side tables and guests take fresh ones. Sets of eight and twelve exist for exactly this reason, and the per-plate price usually falls as the count rises. If you are buying for a house that hosts ten or more, buy a twelve.

3. Material, and specifically what it survives

Porcelain is the default: thin, hard, white, dishwasher and usually oven safe. Stoneware is heavier and warmer-looking and chips at the rim. Melamine does not break, weighs almost nothing, and is never microwave safe. The decision is really about where the plates go - indoor table, or deck and lawn. Our comparison of stoneware, porcelain and melamine goes through the trade-offs in full.

4. How they stack

Twelve small plates live in a cupboard for 360 days a year. Flat rimless rounds stack dead flat and take almost no height. Plates with a pronounced rim or a square outline stack with air between them and take twice the shelf. This sounds trivial until you own three sets.

5. Whether it looks like anything

Last, deliberately. Plain white is the correct default because it disappears behind the food and sits beside any dinnerware you already own. A patterned or embossed plate is a legitimate choice when the plates go on a set table and are part of the look, which is a different occasion from passing food around a room.

Plate size, and what it is actually for

The picks

10 Strawberry Street 6-inch catering set: the default

Twelve plain white six-inch rounds, sold as a catering set rather than as homeware. Six inches is the correct all-purpose appetizer diameter, twelve is the correct count for a house that has ten people over, and plain white is the correct finish for plates whose job is to disappear behind the food. It is also the cheapest per plate here by a wide margin.

The honest cons: it is characterless by design and will never be the pretty plate on the table, six inches is too small for anything needing a knife, and twelve plates is twelve plates to store. If you want the party solved rather than the table styled, buy this one.

Sweese 7.4-inch porcelain: for a real helping

Sweese porcelain turns up throughout our dinnerware research because the white stays white and the plates are thinner and harder than the price suggests. At 7.4 inches these are dessert plates doing appetizer duty, which is the right call for a buffet or a seated first course where people serve themselves properly. Microwave and oven safe, so the same plate handles leftovers on a Tuesday.

Against it: six plates, so twelve guests needs two sets; the extra width invites the pile that small plates exist to prevent; and the per-plate cost is roughly double the catering twelve-pack.

Homienly 5.7-inch melamine: for the deck

Eight unbreakable black melamine plates at the lowest price in this roundup. On a patio, by a pool, or in a house with small children, this is the set that does not end the evening with a dustpan. Black is the right color choice in melamine because pale melamine shows knife scuffing within a season.

The limits are inherent to the material: never microwave safe, so it is serving-only; the surface accumulates cutlery marks over years; and at an indoor set table it reads as plastic however good the molding is. If the plates are mainly going outside, the melamine dinnerware roundup covers matching full sets.

eieioo 5-inch ceramic: genuinely small

Five inches is small enough that nobody can build a tower on it, which is the entire argument. These are the plates for a cocktail party - one or two bites, a napkin, and a hand free for a drink. Six of them take up less cupboard space than two dinner plates.

The trade-offs are the obvious ones: useless for anything requiring cutlery, guests come back repeatedly so a board empties in waves rather than in one pass, and six plates is a small-party count. The plain white glaze is functional rather than decorative.

Wareland 6-inch embossed square: for a set table

The one set here that is trying to look like something. Square white ceramic with a raised embossed pattern, which reads as deliberate next to round dinnerware and holds its own under candlelight. If the appetizer plates are part of a laid table rather than a stack beside a board, this is the pick - and our guide to how to set a table shows where the small plate actually goes.

Three real drawbacks. Square corners waste plate area, so the usable middle is smaller than six inches implies. The embossed grooves hold dried-on food and need the dishwasher jets to hit them properly. And it is among the most expensive per plate in the roundup.

How many plates, and where you put them

Plan on one and a half plates per guest and put them in two places rather than one. A stack at the board and a second stack wherever the drinks are stops the queue that forms when there is a single pile of plates at one end of the table. If the spread is spread out - a board on the island, a tiered serving stand on the side table - put plates at each station.

For the quantities that go on the plates, our guide to how many appetizers per person gives the per-head numbers, and how much cheese and meat per person covers a board specifically. If you are buying appetizer plates because you have just bought a board, start with our charcuterie board picks and size the plates to the board rather than the other way round.

Which one to buy

• Best overall: 10 Strawberry Street 6-inch, set of 12. The right size, the right count, the lowest cost per plate.
• Best for a buffet or a seated course: Sweese 7.4-inch porcelain. Big enough for a real helping, oven safe.
• Best for outdoors: Homienly 5.7-inch melamine. Eight plates, unbreakable, cheapest here.
• Best for a standing cocktail party: eieioo 5-inch. Small enough to hold with a drink.
• Best for a set table: Wareland 6-inch embossed square. The only one with any decoration.