Holding cutlery: Continental and American styles

There are two accepted ways to use a knife and fork. Knowing both, and the silent signals your cutlery sends to waiters, marks you out as someone at ease anywhere.

Holding a knife and fork

• Fork in the left hand, knife in the right.
• The handle rests in your palm with your index finger along the back. Never hold a knife like a pen, and never grip cutlery in your fist.
• Cut one or two pieces at a time, not your whole plate at once.

Continental (European and British) style

• The fork stays in your left hand, tines down, the whole meal. The knife helps push food onto the back of the fork.
• British etiquette is strict here: fork tines stay down.

American (zigzag) style

• Cut with the fork in the left hand, then put the knife down and switch the fork to your right hand, tines up, to eat.
• In the US it is fine to switch between styles.
• Choose one style and use it consistently; both are correct.

Silent signals

• Once you have used cutlery, it never goes back on the tablecloth. Rest it on your plate.
• Pausing, Continental: knife and fork crossed in the centre of the plate, fork over knife, tines down (some guides use an inverted V instead).
• Pausing, American: knife across the top right edge of the plate, blade in; fork angled lower on the plate.
• Finished: knife and fork side by side, fork tines up, knife blade facing in. Debrett's places them at 'six thirty' (pointing straight down); many American guides place them at '10 and 4'. Either way, together and parallel means 'I have finished.'
• If you drop a piece of cutlery in a restaurant, leave it (unless someone could trip) and quietly ask for a replacement.