If I win the lottery, I won’t tell you, but there will be signs. And the first will be my cutlery drawer. It will be both the magpie’s dream and a millennial woman’s trophy.

There’s nothing quite as luxurious as upgrading the shovel that feeds you every day. Before you buy the Porsche, you should buy the silver spoon. Keen host but poor chef? Why not ease a bit of hosting pressure by ensuring that even if your culinary skills resemble that of the whisk guy from that episode of Come Dine With Me - your guests can still justify scoring you a respectable seven for the table display alone.

I’m convinced the cutlery drawer is simply the adult evolution of a child’s pencil case. That early devotion to stationery curation clearly imprinted on me. Only now, the drawer is the vessel and the cutlery are the tools you wait (far too eagerly) for guests to notice.

That unfiltered joy doesn’t disappear, instead it merely matures into spending an unreasonable amount of time deliberating over butter knives.

These are your daily tools. The unsung heroes. So it’s only fair you invest in something you’re willing to look after - is what I tell my friends that require validation for what is, on paper, an entirely unreasonable purchase, but a kitchen essential nonetheless.

01 Starting strong with the Brushed Silver Canteen Cutlery Set from Service Projects. Reminiscent of Ikeas Strateg Set from the 70’s this cutlery has strong bones, quietly architectural and assertive in its silhouette but subtle in its composition, this is the understated option. If it were a woman she’d be French and you’d use her photo as a reference image for your hairdresser and inevitably come out disappointed, as everyone knows, chicness must be earned.

02 If plain silver isn’t your cup of tea, allow me to introduce cutlery by Late Afternoon. A small delight for the eye, these pieces have the admirable ability to brighten even the beige-est of dinners. Primary colours now feel almost neutral; these unapologetic pops can do very little wrong, serving intention wherever they end up. Frankly, my dishwasher has never looked better.

03 Cue the next alluring French guest at the table: L’Escargot Cutlery Set from Maison Balzac. Inspired by the minimalist home of le snail of course. Gentle in their design these are an easy addition to add some fun to your dining table, I like to imagine a solitary French woman spinning spaghetti with this very fork in her right hand and a glass of wine in her left.

04 Vintage Laguiole France Bee Cutlery. Now these, I don’t want new. Absolutely not. I want them handed to me in a slightly tired elastic band by a French grandmother, ideally lifted straight from her neatly crocheted tablecloth, the good one, naturally. The kind that has seen things.

Instead, I will settle for hoping they arrive in that spirit, gently scuffed and posted through my letterbox by the eBay gods. Wrapped in three layers of newspaper and mild suspense, preferably.

Side note: One of the sweetest facts of life is how the pound coin is still the most trusted metric for the eBay purist.

In the spirit of ‘if you’ve got it, flaunt it’ should you wish to display your newly acquired cutlery with the reverence it deserves, eBay also offers an array of excellent caddies. I once encountered a particularly charming example at a wine bar in Barcelona and, regrettably, have been thinking about it ever since, see below.

Alongside my supermarket daffodils this Easter weekend, I’ll be letting the table play its part, an invitation to civilised indulgence and a feast as pleasing to the eye as it is to the appetite. When food is your love language, the magic lies as much in the setting as the serving, a carefully curated array of tableware and trinkets - the scavenger hunt of adults if you will.

Happy feasting!

Megan Elizabeth writes about design, food, travel and the details that make a home on her Substack, Detailings. Read more at detailings.substack.com.