The Very Best Place Mats, According to People Whose Taste We Trust

“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.”

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.”

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.

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.”

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.”

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.

Though Reid isn’t typically a fan of gingham, she says the black trim on these “makes them slightly more formal and refined” than the typical picnic-y vibe associated with the pattern. She’s been using these for over three years and finds that “they’ve held up well after several machine washes and air dries, and don’t get too wrinkly when they’re dried on a regular drying rack.” When it comes to using them for dining, she likes to pair them with some checkered napkins from the same line. And for a real statement, she says, “I’ll put the whole setup on top of a white linen tablecloth, which really makes them pop and almost look a little graphic.”

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 earlier this 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.

“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.

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.