Table Aesthetics

Jess Castellote

The past days have been full of special meals with family and friends. In between them, I have been reading Yuriko Saito’s book Everyday Aesthetics, and it has changed how I now see the folded napkins, the carefully arranged platters, the way a bowl of pepper soup has been positioned and served, the way a big chicken was served whole for us to carve it.

We tend to think of aesthetics as something that happens in museums or special places where beauty is the whole point. But Saito argues that our everyday aesthetic choices, the ones we make in kitchens and at dining tables, matter just as much. Maybe more, because we live with them daily, and because they say something about how we see each other.

There is something particular about the way food presentation was approached in a couple of meals that drove this home for me. It was not just about the food tasting good, but the attention to how things looked, how the table felt and the whole experience unfolded. The way dishes are arranged, the choice of serving bowls, even how drinks are poured. These things can be done perfunctorily or with care. The aesthetic attention was not decoration added on top of hospitality. It was hospitality itself, made visible.

There is a reason most of us prefer a table rather than being handed plates to balance on our laps. When eating a meal while seated on a couch, I immediately face a physical awkwardness that undermines the whole experience. Where does the glass go when you need both hands? How do you use a napkin gracefully when clutching a plate? At a table, movements can be fluid and considered. You can set down your fork, take a sip, dab your mouth with a napkin, all with an ease that is impossible when precariously managing everything in your hands. The table provides the stable surface that allows the aesthetics of dining to emerge—the rhythm of eating, the ability to engage in conversation, the dignity of using utensils properly.

Reading Saito’s book has helped me see that everyday aesthetic practices can carry moral weight. When we arrange a table with care, we are showing respect and consideration. We are saying, through our choices, “you matter to me.” A meal thrown together carelessly, plates slapped down without thought, communicate something else entirely. Indifference, mostly.

There is a common misconception that table aesthetics is primarily a matter of money—expensive plates, elaborate flower centrepieces, extravagant cutlery and costly ingredients. But this misses the point entirely. All of us have been to homes where the plates did not match exactly, where the tablecloth, if any, was simple, where the meal was modest but beautifully presented. The aesthetic attention was still unmistakable. Someone had ironed that tablecloth, had arranged those ordinary plates thoughtfully, had garnished a simple dish with care. Somebody had taken care of details. What matters is not the price tag but the attention given, the effort made to present things beautifully with whatever means are available. A bowl of rice and stew can be served carelessly or with genuine care—and guests feel the difference immediately. Caring is itself a moral act, or as Simone Weil would say, attention is a form of giving.

I have just learnt that there is a Japanese concept called omotenashi—wholehearted hospitality—that captures this. In a Japanese tea ceremony, every element is considered, from the seasonal flowers to the angle at which the tea bowl is turned. These are ways of showing you have thought about your guest’s experience, that you have made this moment for them. But care and attentiveness are not limited to Japan.

I see something similar in Nigerian hospitality and everywhere. The way hosts suggest where to sit. The way portions are generous but thoughtfully served, not just heaped on a plate but arranged so you can see each element. The way there is always more than enough, because abundance itself is a form of welcome.

Yet this kind of aesthetic care work—setting tables, arranging food—has historically been done by women. And because it has been women’s work, it has been systematically devalued. Scholars of care ethics like Carol Gilligan and Joan Tronto have shown how our society marginalizes domestic care. A chef arranging plates in a restaurant is celebrated as an artist. A mother doing essentially the same thing at home is “just making dinner.” The attention, sophistication and skill involved become invisible when it happens in domestic spaces.

Care ethicists argue that caring relationships, built through attentiveness and responsiveness to particular needs, are foundational to morality. When someone notices a guest’s preferences, remembers that someone does not eat certain foods and makes sure there are options, when they create a table where people feel welcome, this is ethical work requiring real skill and attention.

In one meal, I noticed the host had set out a small bowl of water with lemon slices for washing hands after eating. It wasn’t necessary—there was a bathroom nearby—but it was thoughtful. It meant guests did not have to leave the table or interrupt the conversation. A tiny aesthetic choice that served a moral purpose: keeping people together, making the moment more pleasant.

Our aesthetic choices in everyday life reflect our values. The environments we create, the attention we give to daily practices, these are places where ethics actually lives, in the concrete rather than the abstract. Making life beautiful for others, in small daily ways, is profound ethical practice. The next time I see a well-arranged table, a thoughtful presentation of food, I will recognize what somebody has done. They have practiced real attentiveness, made care visible through beauty. They are doing ethics with their hands. That is the lesson from these days: that the everyday practices we might take for granted—the set table, the arranged plate, the welcoming space—are where ethics and aesthetics meet, where we show each other, again and again, that we matter.

• Castellote, PhD, is the director, Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art (YSMA), Pan-Atlantic University