Alessi La Bella Tavola Porcelain 4-Place Setting Breakfast and Dinner Dining Set

Alessi is an Italian housewares company founded in the 1920s so it is great to find a restaurant-quality dinner set such as this at an affordable price on Amazon. Ettore Sottsass was a prolific designer who founded the design-group Memphis and he also designed this dinner set. They are ivory-white in hue, rather than stark white. The bowls have a lip around the edge for ease of use in terms of picking up and placing down. The saucers feature a circular recess; the diameter of this exactly matching that of the base of the cups, meaning that the cups don't slide about on the saucers. This is not only a functional aspect of the saucers but looks aesthetically pleasing. The surface of the plates where food comes into contact is very slightly welled rather than completely level and this is designed to help prevent sauces from running off the plate. This is aided further by a slight ridge around the food area which acts as a barrier. It is attention to details such as these that makes this set such a cut above the rest. They are quite fragile so I only use these when I have guests, rather than day-to-day use. The pieces arrived; two to a box in attractive black, red and white packaging. The individual boxes were wrapped in bubblewrap inside a sturdier cardboard box so I knew that there were going to be no breakages. I appreciate and respect good design and am very happy with this set.

Loved the dinner service but was very disappointed that there was no side plates with the set and I'm finding it impossible to get any.if I had realised this I would not have bought the set.

Most pleased with item nice size mugs and cups supper. cereal bowls nice size plates very pleased