3 Designers Share Their Holiday-Hosting Style And Tips
Rosh Mahtani (Alighieri), JJ Martin (La DoubleJ) and Anna Jewsbury (Completedworks) share their holiday-hosting preparations – from curating beautiful celebratory tables to creating the festive dishes they love to serve. By KATIE BERRINGTON
Rosh Mahtani, founder of Alighieri
My holiday-hosting style
I like hosting family-style, sharing big bowls of pasta, salads and wine. I usually wear black jeans, a white tank and no shoes. It’s such a luxury to be able to host in this really intimate way.
My dream festive aesthetic
I love the space to be entirely candlelit with Alighieri totemic candlesticks and cutlery. I’m not a huge fan of traditional Christmas decorations, I like to keep things timeless. I really enjoy using the food as a centerpiece: mountains of sea salt on our ‘Bearer of Fortune’ dishes, big slabs of butter resting in the ‘Shell of Clarity’ dish, and freshly baked focaccia with jewel-like tomatoes and sprigs of rosemary.
The dish I always serve
I love to make a whole salmon with slices of lemon and fresh parsley, with roasted garlic potatoes.
I feel truly ready to host when I have…
A glass of wine while everything’s cooking in the oven – and I’m writing everyone’s name cards out and dancing around the kitchen.
What I love most about a holiday gathering
Bringing people together, sharing stories from the year passed and breaking bread with family.
JJ Martin, founder of La DoubleJ
My holiday-hosting style
I never like to be too fussy with entertaining; I learnt that from the flawlessly relaxed and chic Italians. Especially during the holidays – the idea is to create warmth from the inside out. It starts with a great mix of people – that is, the ones you truly love. And then it goes to vibey music, lots of candles and low lighting, tons of flowers and, of course, a wild mix of patterns on the table.
My dream festive aesthetic
Piled-on joy and layers of pattern, without looking like a car crash. You can contain the exuberance on specific tables; you don’t have to have it everywhere. In fact, I don’t like festive décor all around the house. My dream scenario has tons of candles with really good fragrances, plus a personal touch at each table setting. I love to gift crystals, or something from your travels, wrapped up in a small piece of fabric tied with ribbon. And I love flowers everywhere – in tiny Murano glass bud vases, mini porcelain La DoubleJ tea jars and our big, printed ‘Bubble’ vases.
My best holiday-décor tips
I always recommend finding a color story. An individual shade or tone that can be pulled from one of our tablecloths in the Cortile print can be found on the trim of one of our ‘Rainbow’ dinner plates, for example – it’s a great place to start. Even if you then go really over the top with pattern-clashing, or mixing eras and styles (which obviously I do), that running color theme will help to create balance. I also like to use some of the assorted vintage silverware I’ve collected from second-hand shops and antiques markets here in Milan with our printed napkins. I love to mix eras, whether it’s in my décor, on my table or when I’m getting dressed – it adds personality, in my opinion. When in doubt, I fall back on our printed dessert plates, which come in mix-and-match sets of six in all different prints and colorways, but all in the same ‘family’. They are instant conversation-starters.
The dish I always serve
As the token Californian here in Italy, a huge, incredible winter salad is totally de rigueur. I do it with radicchio, endive and fennel, and I add pomegranate, orange and dill, topped off with walnuts and a feta or blue cheese. But, of course, one of the crucial lessons I’ve learnt – which I share in my book, Mamma Milano – is that no Italian holiday is complete without a beautiful pasta of some kind; my favorite is an amazing recipe from River Café Cookbook Easy, with radicchio and pancetta.
I feel truly ready to host when I have…
A great outfit. A great playlist. And, above all, a great guest list.
What I love most about a holiday gathering
Besides the inevitable mid-dinner dance breaks? I think my favorite thing about hosting during the holidays is that everyone is in a celebratory mood – ready to let their hair down. It’s like there’s a positive energy built into every party. There’s something about the winding down of the year that feels reflective and appreciative. Everyone has this kind of ‘gratitude attitude’ that really permeates any event you’re hosting.
Anna Jewsbury, founder of Completedworks
My holiday-hosting style
To me, holiday hosting should be focused on the joy of gathering people together and sharing a moment. So, I’m always trying to keep this in mind when thinking about dressing the table and arranging the room. Taking the time to build a beautiful table design can be really impactful. I like it to excite the imagination from first glance and make your eyes dart around as you soak it all up. For example, rethinking a traditional table setting and building a centerpiece around food sculptures, instead of a floral arrangement, can be a great way to do this. Similarly, with my own personal style for hosting, I like to stick to a simple color palette and use jewelry to add interesting or subversive elements.
My dream festive aesthetic
Lots of green, a touch of nostalgia, and something unexpected.
My best holiday-décor tips
It’s often helpful to start with a theme – even if it’s just a consistent color scheme – as a common thread to bring everything together. Then, thinking about combining different textures or elements can be visually effective, especially raw textures alongside more refined materials. Completedworks’ recycled glass platters and glasses become such a talking point whenever someone discovers them at the table – they are handblown, so they have slightly different shapes each time, and the glasses have these beautiful ‘melting’ stems that make them look alive. The textures are also really pleasing, with visible air bubbles that catch the eye.
The dish I always serve
Homemade cranberry sauce.
I feel truly ready to host when…
I have a good group of guests.
What I love most about a holiday gathering
It’s a great opportunity to take the time to reconnect with family and friends – new and old.