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Imagine the gentle touch of cloth placemats – soft, inviting, and a canvas for endless possibilities. Fabric placemats come in an array of colors, patterns, allowing you to express your style effortlessly. They're like a warm hug for your table, offering comfort and aesthetics. And the best part? Fabric placemats are often machine washable, making clean-up a breeze and keeping them ready for your next indoor dining adventure, or they act as outdoor placemats. Cotton placemats are popular for their durability, versatility, and ease of care. Here are some top picks for cotton placemats:
1) Classic Checkered Placemats
These timeless buffalo plaid placemats are perfect for both casual and formal dining. The checkered pattern adds a touch of nostalgia, while the cotton fabric ensures easy maintenance.
2) Hemstitched Placemats
Hemstitched placemats weave intricate charm into every setting, blending timeless design with modern sophistication. Crafted for function and style, they're the perfect backdrop for memorable dining moments. Discover the art of dining with refined hemstitched placemats.
3) Striped Placemats
The striped placemats are table coverings featuring horizontal or vertical lines of alternating colors or shades. These patterns add a dynamic and visually appealing element to table settings, often complementing the overall decor and creating a sense of movement and style. Striped placemats are versatile, suitable for both casual and formal dining occasions.
4) Solid Color Placemats
Sometimes, simplicity is key. Solid color placemats offer a clean and minimalist look, allowing your tableware to take center stage.
5) Round Placemats
The round cloth placemats are circular table accessories that protect dining surfaces from spills, heat, and scratches. They add a touch of style to table settings, creating a defined space for each diner while contributing to the overall aesthetic of the dining area. These versatile accessories are a popular choice for both casual and formal occasions.
Design:
Patterns: Choose placemats with designs that complement your tableware and decor. Floral, geometric, and abstract patterns can add visual interest to your table.
Solid Colors: Solid-colored placemats provide a clean and elegant look. They're versatile and paired with different dishes and centerpieces.
Shape and Size:
Rectangular:The rectangular placemats are the most common and can accommodate round and rectangular tables. They provide a defined space for each place setting.
Round:The round placemats are ideal for round tables and it adds a unique touch to your dining setup.
Oversized: To showcase your placemats and create a statement look, consider large placemats extending beyond the table's edge.
Maintenance:
Easy to Clean: Opt for wipeable placemats that are easy to clean, and machine washable.
Stain-Resistant: Look for materials resistant to stains and spills, especially if you have young children.
Related Vidoes or Readings:
Photo-Illustration: The Strategist; Photos: Retailers
Whether woven with rattan or ramie, accentuated by scallops or stripes, or plain and simple, place mats do much more than just protect your table against heat, cold, and food (though that’s important, too). They’re a tabletop piece that, when factored into an overall tablescape, can transform a blandly set table into a spread that’ll have guests reminiscing about more than just the food. And, like tablecloths or drinking glasses, place mats are pieces that you can collect over time. “You’re not going to go and say, ‘You know what? Today, I’m going to buy every tablescape item for the rest of my life,’” advises Saanya Ali, writer and founder of the site SOIRÉE. “It’s something that the pieces come to you, but bit by bit you’re building your arsenal.”
To help you build that arsenal, I spoke to more than 12 stylish people — including cookbook authors, store owners, and interior designers, plus the members of the Strategist staff — about their favorite place mats. Here you’ll find handcrafted mats from artisans in Mexico, kid-proof mats that actually look nice, and plenty of other options in a variety of interesting shapes and sizes. And to help you better achieve your tabletop vision, I sorted the place mats by shape and included picks at a variety of price points.
Update on April 10, : Added several new place mats, including ones from Muji, Chilewich, and Graf Lantz; updated prices and checked stock for all other products.
Round place mats
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Strategist contributor Kiki Aranita pulls these colorful woven place mats out for special occasion meals where she wants to bring a bit of color to her table. The place mats are made of palm leaves that Guanajuato artisans have dyed, woven, and machine-stitched on top (just note: if you are using these on a lighter-colored table or with a light-colored plate, Aranita says the color can transfer). If you’re looking to add just a spot of color here and there, alternate these with any of the more neutral-colored place mats, which you’ll find below.
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“This won’t come as a surprise to anyone who reads my newsletter Dinner: A Love Story, but when I’m sitting at a dinner table — whether it’s in the dining room or kitchen — I feel like something is missing if there are no place mats,” says author Jenny Rosenstrach. Her current favorite is a round natural rattan option that she inherited from her mother-in-law and that looks similar to these, which are available in three washes: a slate gray, honey brown, and natural rattan. “I feel like they’d be just as appropriate for a beach house as they are in my New York apartment,” she says. When not in use, the place mats “sit in a stack in the middle of my dining room table, propping up a fruit bowl or, right now, a bowl of decorative gourds,” Rosenstrach tells me, adding, “Yes, I am that person.”
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From
$16
If you’d rather an oval place mat that’s also handmade, go with Strategist senior editor Hilary Reid’s recommendation. It’s a woven place mat from Etsy that’s similar to a set that she got while on vacation in Jamaica. “I leave them on my table pretty much all the time, and love that the woven grass adds some texture on top of whatever tablecloth is underneath,” she says. Plus, she says washing them isn’t a drag: “It’s more of a shake them out after using situation.”
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These place mats are made of recycled leather, and if you’re wondering what that feels like, recipe developer and food writer Rebecca Firkser describes it as having a slippery rather than buttery hand-feel. Over the years, she’s tried a variety of place mats, and these are the only ones that she’s stuck with. “They did exactly what I needed them to do: They keep the table clear, but they feel a little bit simple, but still fun-looking,” she adds. Since she owns them in four different colors, Firkser typically pairs them with an assortment of mismatched plates for an eclectic look. And at the end of the night, there’s no fuss: “I feel like you could just smear anything on them, and then they just wipe clean really quickly,” she says.
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Recipe developer and fashion designer Peter Som describes these woven place mats as his “everyday” set. Like Reid’s woven oval mats, these are “woven in a nice tight weave in a natural tone that goes with any place setting,” he says. The higher price comes from the place mat’s origin: the Philippines, where artisans weave them by hand. And since they’re finished with a layer of lacquer, Som reports that “they wipe dry easily.”
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Known for its stain- and odor-resistant wool home goods, Graf Lantz is one of those brands often hovering in the Strategist Hive Mind (its coasters are in the Kitchen 100, after all). Strategist senior writer Michael Zhao recommends the brand’s place mats, which, he says, “pair well with your typical millennial-coded design-y minimalist dishes (think Heath, Hasami or Jono Pandolfi).” After using them for three years, Zhao reports the place mats haven’t degraded at all. Though the lighter colors will, unsurprisingly, show stains more easily than darker shades, he says each can be spot cleaned with a dab of mild soap or Woolite detergent on a wet dish towel. Best of all, he reports, they double as trivets: “I can pop a Le Creuset fresh from the oven directly on top and not have to worry about the wood beneath.”
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Plaza Bolívar Hilamos Rust Place Mats
$40
for 2
$40
for 2
Anna Polonsky, founder of the branding and design consultancy Polonsky & Friends, has been using these as her everyday place mats for nearly four years. “We had met Mariana Suarez over the years before she started her brand,” Polonsky says of her and her husband, adding that when the brand launched, “We fell in love with her collection.” Unlike the Zinnia place mats earlier on this list, these deep rust colored ones don’t transfer color and are made to last. “We’ve never had to change them, and we use them all the time,” she says. “There’s never an issue of wine stains or stains that don’t go away.”
[Editor’s note: The Plaza Bolívar place mats are currently unavailable, but you can sign up for restock notifications here.]
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Fabiana Faria and Helena Barquet, the owners of Coming Soon, have long carried Gaetano Pesce’s striking vessels in their store, but were always intrigued by his playful place mats. Today, these are the place mats that live on their own kitchen table — and they’re remarkably durable because they’re made of resin. “You can’t stain them because they’re not fabric,” Faria says. “And they’re such a fun pop of color.” When not in use, you can leave them on the table, or follow Barquet’s tip: “You can also stick them on your window and it looks like stained glass,” she says.
Rectangular place mats
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Edy Massih, cookbook author and owner of Edy’s Grocer, uses these mats more for décor than for protecting his dining room table. “They go really well with the space because they’re brown and our space is brown and our table is also brown,” he says. While CB2 no longer makes the faux leather place mats in brown, they still come in a deep evergreen, ivory, black, and gray. And whether you use it for eating or for decorating, the place mat “makes it a little bit more elegant, and it gives you that feeling that you’re at a restaurant,” he says.
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“‘Easy to wipe down’ is a key requirement of place mats in my household that involves children,” says Strategist senior editor Jen Trolio. These are flexible, which makes them more difficult to wipe down in the sink, but they’ve held up for more than three years in Trolio’s home. As far as kid-proof place mats go, it’s hard to get better than these, which come in a variety of reversible options. “You have to be okay with bright colors and kitsch,” Trolio adds. (If you’d like a kid-friendly option that’s more rigid, she recommends these delightful, and very affordable, ones from Target.)
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Muji Placemat
$20
$20
If you prefer your rattan rectangular, I recommend this woven place mat from Muji. After happening upon it during a recent amble around Muji’s Williamsburg store, I called in a sample to test and am happy to report that the place mat, with its intricate, hand-knitted weave, makes even a quick breakfast feel more like a special meal. Since the product is handmade, you should expect slight imperfections throughout — as in small variations in color and the occasional stray stand of rattan — along with a noticeably strong smoky-woodsy smell that will disappear slowly with time. All of this, to me, just contributes to the place mat’s charm, but if you have a sensitive sense of smell, I recommend choosing a different place mat.
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Lauhala Place Mats (Set of 2)
$20
for 2
$20
for 2
For everyday meals and for toning down a tablescape that involves her Mexican Palma place mats, Aranita swears by these, which she typically buys in bulk as gifts when she goes back to Hawaii, where she grew up. They do wear down over time, but Aranita says that she is “extremely not gentle with them” and has cycled through many for nearly 20 years. “I wipe them down with sanitizer after use, but I’ve also hand washed them with soap and water,” she tells me.
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$22
for 4
Here’s another place mat that you don’t have to worry about staining. While I typically use a set of beautiful Provençal-style place mats that I bought in New Orleans, I swap them out for these cotton ones from Amazon on nights when my boyfriend and I are eating the messier dishes in our repertoire. When we inevitably spill some mapo tofu or tomato sauce on the mats, we’ll just throw them in the wash and let them air-dry. After enduring more than six months of regular wear and tear, the mats look about the same as they did on day one — just a little less blue, a result of repeated washing.
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It’s hard to write about place mats without mentioning Chilewich, the brand whose woven vinyl place mats have been spotted everywhere from Le Bernardin and Boulud Sud to the Lotte New York Palace Hotel. Reid recently added these to her place-mat repertoire after she and her fiancé started using a black lacquer kitchen table in their apartment setup. A flat and slightly grippy option that prevents liquids from seeping through, the place mats fit the bill for a set that “could ‘live’ on the table all the time to protect it from daily use,” Reid says. She’s owned them for a few months and has no complaints so far; meanwhile, Masih has owned his for about six years and reports they’re holding up well, with no peeling or curling to be seen.
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$30
For a sturdy place mat that still has a little flair, consider these cotton ones that recipe developer and food content creator Christine Han picked up last year. She uses them as her everyday place mats and says that they easily match with many of her dishes. Unlike other place mats on this list, the Città mats are reversible, so you’re basically getting two place mats for the price of one. Another benefit: You can just flip them over when they’re dirty — or simply throw them in the wash. “They’re stylish and easy to maintain,” Han says.
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Faria initially recommended these place mats to us in , and the place mats are still a mainstay in her and Barquet’s rotation — “and we have plenty of place mats,” Faria adds. After a decade of use, the place mats have only suffered a little fading, so you’ll be able to enjoy the vibrant fern scene for years to come. To clean, just throw them in the wash as they’re printed on half-cotton, half-linen material.
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$32
for 2
“Everything that Dusen Dusen does, I’m in love with,” Ali says — and that includes the brand’s striped place mats, which come in a variety of vibrant color combinations, including a delightful lilac and sage green pairing. “A two-color or three-color stripe [combination] lends itself to so many different iterations if you can play with one of the colors,” she says. And if you mix multiple stripe combinations — as Dusen Dusen allows with its mixed place-mat option — your tablescaping skills are top notch.
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$109
for 6
Inspired by her childhood in France, Ali has a soft spot for Provençal-style place-mats like these, which feature botanical designs. Though the ones her family uses are from France, these linen ones are the most similar mats that she’s been able to find over the years. Designed by Parisian artist Bruno Lamy, the mats are handmade by Indian artisans because of Lamy’s passion for the age-old Indian technique of hand-block printing.
Scalloped place mats
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Your average place mat is going to be round or rectangular, but scalloped ones will add more dimension to your table. Of the many scalloped options that founder of design studio Date Interiors Molly Torres Portnof recommends, this flower-shaped one is especially durable because it’s made of banana bark, which can withstand cleaning with a damp towel. Torres Portnof recommends pairing these with a tablecloth. “If you’re doing a tablecloth, you don’t really want another fabric material on top of that because that can just look cumbersome and too much,” she advises. “But because the petal fiber is a woven fiber, that could look good against a normal cotton or linen tablecloth.”
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$80
for 4
If you’re looking for something that will “make the table pop on its own,” Massih recommends these, which he discovered from his prop stylist when they were shooting his cookbook, Keep It Zesty. They’re on Ali’s wish list, too. And since she had Gilmore Girls on the brain when we chatted this fall, she’d like to place the olive ones in a tablescape that includes gold flatware, eucalyptus leaves, terracotta glasses, and mustard-colored plates. Just note: Massih says you’ll have to iron them after a wash. “And who has time to iron anything nowadays,” he adds.
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Gohar World Opaline Place Mat
$80
for 2
$80
for 2
Torres Portnof typically shops at smaller vendors — Coming Soon in particular — when she wants something special to punch up an otherwise “too non-personal” table. This place mat, which is striped, scalloped, and a bit shimmery, “fits that bill,” she says. Gohar also makes non-striped ones that feature feet-shaped pearls, and are some of Faria and Barquet’s favorite place mats, too. “Their linen quality is just really fantastic,” Faria says. “It’s so nice to just touch and interact with all of the linens that they make.”
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Mark and Graham Scalloped Placemats (Set of 4),
From
$99
for 4
From
$99
for 4
Mark and Graham has long been on our radar for nice monogrammed things, and its scalloped place mats are a delightful option for the embroidery-inclined (they’d make a great host or wedding gift, too). In the time since I called in a sample of these place mats earlier this fall, they’ve become a staple in my hosting arsenal, pairing just as nicely with ceramic plates as they do with plastic. Best of all, they’ve successfully protected my vintage wood table from dinner-party spills. While you can personalize the place mats with a variety of monogrammable styles, the blank mats look nice on their own, too.
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$98
for 4
Polonsky rotates between these jewel-toned place mats and her Plaza Bolivar place mats. These take the scalloping to a new level with the addition of half moon cutouts and whimsical patches featuring flowers and such. “I think it doesn’t work for everyone,” Polonsky says, “But for us, we have pretty neutral ceramics — it’s all clay but it’s kind of imperfect, but it’s not crazy colorful — and so I love to have more colorful place mats.” Just note: you’ll have to take these velvet place mats to the dry cleaners.
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Best Place Mats, According to People Whose Taste We Trust
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