5-Piece Laguiole Individual Cutlery Set

Choosing an individual cutlery set: olive, juniper or snakewood

Since one material runs through all five handles, choosing it is the one real decision. Olive is satin-finished with a fine, dense grain, brown veining over a honey background that darkens with time. Juniper, also satin, is lighter: blond to honey and dotted with small knots, which give every handle its own look. Snakewood is polished and far darker, running from brown into deep red, with patterns that recall a snake's skin. On plain white plates, snakewood gives more contrast, while juniper keeps the table light and olive sits between the two.

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Watch the snakewood individual cutlery set

Five pieces with polished snakewood handles, brown shading into deep red.

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Cutlery set for one, from soup to pudding

This cutlery set for one covers three courses. You begin with the soup spoon, then the knife and fork for your main, and finish with the dessert pair: the fork for cake or tart, the spoon for crumble, custard or fruit. Several British shops sell seven-piece settings and call a five-piece one an American setting. Unlike the American kind, which often pairs a salad fork with a teaspoon, this cutlery place setting has a dessert fork and spoon, so pudding is eaten the British way, with both. For more detail on these sets, read The Essential UK Guide to 5-Piece Laguiole Individual Cutlery Sets.

Five pieces for one, or 24 pieces for six?

Pick the individual set if it's for one person, or if a dessert fork matters to you. With the 24-Piece Laguiole Cutlery Set for 6, you lay six places, each with a table knife, table fork, soup spoon and dessert spoon, but no dessert fork. There are eleven versions of that set, compared with five for the individual one. Both are made by hand in France by Laguiole en Aubrac, so the choice rests on how many people you seat and which pieces you want. You can also build up a full table one individual set at a time, so every guest has a dessert fork.

Questions about individual cutlery sets

A care leaflet is packed with each set: wash by hand, dry each piece with a tea towel once it's clean, and never put the pieces in the dishwasher, where heat and long soaking would dull the handles.