Albert Pinto: Table Settings
October 31, 2010 
Irwin Weiner - Are you one of those super-organized people who have all your holiday gift purchases wrapped up before Thanksgiving? I can only marvel at that. I wait until the last minute, but one thing is for certain - I will be purchasing a few copies of Alberto Pinto's Table Settings for good friends. It's filled with essential inspiration for tabletop fans.
Alberto Pinto is a highly respected specialist in photography, interior architecture and design, tabletop, and entertaining. I was not surprised that his generosity of spirit drives his love for entertaining and surrounding his guests with beauty, luxury, and whimsy. He respects guests who smoke, too, providing elegant containers for cigarettes at the placesettings.
His trick to making memorable tables is having vast collections of silver, china, stemware, linens, and other decor items on hand at his various residences - a Paris flat, a summer home overlooking the Mediterranean, and a NYC apartment. Company coming over? Not to worry. Mr. Pinto takes an average of 15 minutes to expertly style and dress a table.
He dips into his well-organized cupboards, pantries, and storage areas (beautifully photographed for the book, and certainly putting everything I've seen about storage to shame) and comes up with a glorious juxtaposition of objects which ranges from simple and refined to gloriously festive.
Alberto Pinto, Rizzoli, decorating, table settings in interior design 
