British-born cookery writer, Skye McAlpine, has lived in her beloved Venice for over three decades, and is the author of four beautiful cookbooks. A Table in Venice (Clarkson Potter), is an homage to the food of her childhood in Italy; A Table for Friends (Bloomsbury), celebrates Skye's long-ingrained passion for gathering with loved ones to share food; and A Table Full of Love, is packed with recipes to comfort, seduce, spoil, nourish, and cocoon.
Skye has collaborated with brands including Anthropologie and Papier on tabletop collections that capture her relaxed and elegant approach to hosting, and launched her own dedicated tableware collection, Tavola, in 2021, which brings her playful and storied aesthetic to special gatherings.
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How Skye Creates A Welcoming and Generous Festive Table
'I love this time of year because it’s a wonderful excuse to bring the people that you love together and go over the top,' shares Skye as she lays a simple white tablecloth over her rustic wooden table, which is flanked by Bentwood chairs painted in a vibrant forest green. 'You either want to start with a bare surface of the table or with a tablecloth, but it feels very "special occasion" to have a white tablecloth,' she adds, before layering up her place settings.
'These plates, which are part of my own range, (Fiocco Plates at Tavola), are hand-painted with bows – I love bows. They’re green and red, so they feel like very festive, celebratory colors.' Skye stresses the importance of having complementary tableware to serve your carefully planned and prepared dishes on.
Skye's bow-design Fiocco Plates and Vintage Napkins, both at Tavola by Skye McAlpine
'I love adding a little vintage something - old things add story and character,' says Skye as she adds her Tavola Vintage Napkins to each place setting, folded diamond-style to show off the beautiful hand-embroidered detailing. 'I’m definitely a big believer in fabric napkins, as I think they just feel so luxurious. If you’ve got a nice big cotton napkin that you can drape over your lap, it makes you feel very welcome.'
Next, she selects some beautiful amber glassware from her enviable floor-to-ceiling cabinet – creating your own hosting closet like Skye's is a wonderful way to store and show off your favorite pieces. 'These glasses were a wedding present, so they are very precious to me,' explains Skye. 'They’re a beautiful Champagne color, which almost feels golden and feels quite celebratory.'
Skye's chicory salad with caramelized pecans and her indulgent tablescape
'One thing that I love at Christmas is a salad, as I think you eat so much rich food that it’s nice to have a pop of freshness, and I love red chicory because it looks so festive,' Skye shares. She separates the deep red and white leaves and places them onto her Bianco Serving Dish, which she drizzles with her 'go-to' mayonnaise dressing, made with olive oil vinegar and sometimes a little mustard. 'I like to use fresh crisp leaves and use different kinds of leaves for that contrast of texture and shape,' Skye adds. 'Then I like to toss in extras – blue cheese, pomegranate seeds and nuts.' For this recipe she uses caramelized pecans. 'It's super indulgent and makes it feel that extra bit special.'
As she places a selection of different-sized glass taper candle holders along the table, with bright red taper candles (try these smokeless taper candles from Amazon), Skye continues: 'I like having different height candleholders as I think it adds a bit of drama.' It's touches like this that add her signature understated glamor to her gatherings. 'Imagine yourself wearing a ballgown but going barefoot. Very celebratory but also warm and cozy and comfortable – that's the mood I want to create,' she smiles.
Skye decorating her table with bowls of seasonal fruit and gold coins, in her family tradition
Having grown up in Venice surrounded by incredible opulence and architecture, Skye muses, 'the buildings are like nowhere else in the world, but they’re often crumbling. That actually translates really well to a table.' She continues, 'you want it to feel opulent and over the top, but also kind of imperfect.' For that same reason, a lot of her inspiration comes from Georgian or Victorian tables, she explains, as she delivers bowl after bowl of ripe seasonal fruits, whole walnuts in their shells, (‘they always make me think of Christmas because I have them in my stocking’), marzipan fruits, gold and silver sugared almonds and candycanes to the table.
The Nutcracker Ballet is another source of inspiration for this treat-laden tablescape, which is full of 'beautiful, spoiling, and joyful things that you wouldn’t have at your table on an average day.’ For her finishing touch, Skye adds lots of gold coins scattered all over and around her table decor. 'It’s something that my mother always does on her Christmas table, so for me it wouldn’t be Christmas if there weren’t gold coins everywhere,' she shares.
So, what would her friends say about her hosting style? 'They would describe it as chaotic,' she laughs. 'I hope they’d say fun, friendly, and probably slightly greedy, too, as there’s always lots of food!'
Skye McAlpine's Festive Recipes
Skye shares three beautifully colorful and indulgent dishes from her latest cookbook: The Christmas Companion. 'It’s perfect for the festive season,' she says. 'We’re going to start with a lovely gnocchi gratin, made with a crumbling of toasted panettone on top, a fresh red chicory salad, then roasted sprouts, and to finish off, a gingerbread, cranberry and zabaione trifle.'
Gnocchi and Pumpkin Gratin
'I love this dish because it’s really comforting,' explains Skye. 'Pumpkin, gnocchi and sage is such a classic combination in Italian cooking, but I add in, controversially, quite a lot of grated Cheddar which is a British cheese and this is an Italian dish'. The addition of the panettone however, roots it back in Italy and brings a 'touch of sweetness that feels really festive,' Skye adds. 'So much of the way I cook is influenced by Italy, It is home for me and I have a lot of childhood memories from there, especially around the festive season.'
Ingredients (serves 6)
- 2.8 oz panettone (about 1 cup or 80g torn into small pieces)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 medium red onion, thinly sliced
- 12 oz (about 2½ cups or 350g) chopped pumpkin or squash
- Small bunch of sage (about 10–12 leaves)
- 2 teaspoons (10g) salted butter
- 1.1 lb (500g) gnocchi
- ⅓ cup (100ml) light or half-and-half cream
- 7 oz (about 1 ¾ cups or 200g) mild Cheddar cheese, grated
- 1.4 oz (about ½ cup or 40g) Parmesan cheese, finely grated
Method
- Heat the oven to 350˚F (180˚C). Tear the panettone into small pieces, spread out on a roasting dish, then toast in the hot oven for 6–8 minutes until lightly golden. Set aside.
- Heat the oil in a large, ideally ovenproof, pan. Add the onion and fry gently for 3–5 minutes, until translucent and soft.
- Now add the pumpkin or squash, sage and butter, frying gently over a medium heat for 5–10 minutes until the pumpkin starts to colour. Now reduce the heat a little, cover the pan and cook for a further 10–15 minutes until the pumpkin has softened (if you insert a knife, you should feel little by way of resistance).
- Take off the heat, add the gnocchi, cream and Cheddar, then toss together. (If your pan wasn’t ovenproof, transfer everything to an oven dish at this point.)
- Crumble over the panettone and sprinkle over the Parmesan. Cover with foil. At this point, you can cool to room temperature, then cover and store in the fridge for up to 2 days before baking.
- Set the gratin in the oven (at 350˚F or 180˚C) for 20 minutes, then uncover and bake for a further 10 minutes until the cheese is all melted and lightly golden on top. Serve immediately, while still piping hot.
Sticky Roast Sprouts with Dates and Pistachios
'It’s not really Christmas if you don’t have sprouts,' says Skye. 'I love this way of cooking them where you roast them in the oven, toss them with a sticky sauce, which is made with dates that almost caramelize.' Finally, Skye sprinkles over some chopped pistachios which adds a delicious crunch. 'If I could only eat Brussels sprouts cooked this way for the rest of my life I’d honestly die a very happy woman,' she exclaims'.
Ingredients (Serves 8)
- 1¾ lb (6 cups or 800g) Brussels sprouts, trimmed
- 1½ oz (3 tablespoons or 40g) salted butter
- 2–3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
- 3½ oz (⅔ cup or 100g) dates, pitted and chopped
- ¼ cup (4 tablespoons) extra virgin olive oil
- 3 oz (¾ cup or 90g) pistachios, coarsely chopped (optional)
- Sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Method
- Cut the sprouts in half and toss onto a baking tray, spreading them out in a single layer.
- In a large pan, melt the butter over a medium heat. Once melted, increase the heat and add the balsamic vinegar and chopped dates, along with a generous pinch of salt and a very generous grinding of black pepper. Let bubble away for 2–3 minutes, until the sauce is thickened into something that looks like bubbling molasses. Remove from the heat.
- Heat the oven to 425˚F (220˚C). Line a large baking tray with foil.
- Drizzle the oil over the sprouts, season very generously with salt, and roast for 15–20 minutes, until crisp and tender. Meanwhile, reheat the date sauce.
- Add the roasted Brussels sprouts to the pan of date sauce and stir to coat, then sprinkle with pistachios, if you like, before serving.
Gingerbread, Cranberry and Zabaione Trifle
'Last but not least, we have the trifle,' says Skye. 'The bottom layer is sticky spiced gingerbread, which is so rich and innately tastes like Christmas, then there’s a layer of tart cranberry sauce, zabaione custard.' If that wasn't indulgent enough, it's topped with whipped cream and toasted almonds. 'It just says "massive festive celebration" and encourages everyone dig in with a spoon.’
Ingredients (serves 8-10)
- 1 lb 4½ oz (580g) ginger cake (such as Jamaica Ginger Cake, available from Amazon)
- 10½ oz (1¼ cups or 300g) cranberry sauce
- 12 egg yolks
- 1 cup (200g) sugar
- ½ cup + 2 tablespoons (140ml) Amaretto
- 1 oz (¼ cup or 30g) flaked almonds
- 3¾ cups (900ml) heavy cream
Method
- Slice the ginger cake into 2–3cm-thick pieces and arrange in a trifle dish in a single layer, squishing the pieces of sticky cake together with your fingers so the entire area is covered. Now spoon the cranberry sauce over the cake, spreading it out evenly.
- Fill a pan up to one-third full of water, set it over a medium heat and bring to the boil. Put the egg yolks and sugar into a heatproof bowl and best with an electric whisk – plugged in (if they need to be) close to the stove – for 2–3 minutes, or until you have a light, fluffy and voluminous mass.
- As the mixture begins to froth up, set the bowl over the pan of gently simmering water, taking care that the hot water doesn’t touch the bowl. Keep whisking until the mixture is thick enough for a trail of it to remain on the surface when drizzled over from the whisk. Slowly pour in the Amaretto, whisking all the while. This should take 3–5 minutes, and as you add the liquid, the zabaione will double in size and thicken. Remove the bowl from the heat and let the zabaione cool to room temperature, whisking occasionally to prevent a skin from forming.
- Toss the flaked almonds into a non-stick frying pan and set over a medium heat. Toast for 2–3 minutes, shaking the pan from time to time to move the shards of nuts about, until they are lightly golden. Take off the heat and set aside.
- In a second bowl, whip 400ml of the double cream until soft peaks form, taking care not to over-whip. Gently fold the whipped cream into the cooled zabaione and spoon the yellow, Amaretto-scented custard into the trifle dish, over the cranberry sauce, spreading it out evenly.
- Store in the fridge, covered, for up to 36 hours. Alternatively, freeze for up to 3 months, then defrost overnight in the fridge before adding the whipped cream and nuts.
- When ready to serve, whip the remaining cream to soft peaks, spoon it over the layer of zabaione and sprinkle over the toasted flaked almonds. You can prepare this up to 24 hours before serving and keep it in the fridge until you’re ready for pudding.
Shop Skye's Fabulously Festive Look
From specialist pieces selected from her own Tavola collection, to suggestions from some of Homes & Gardens' favorite retailers, to help you get the look, here's what you need to create a fabulously festive table in the style of Skye McAlpine.
Skye's favorite bow design plates were hand-painted by skilled artisans in the Veneto region of Italy and look beautiful layered up with the matching Fiocco Side Plates for an elegant table.
In the beautiful Champagne gold of Skye's wedding glasses, this etched set of drinking glasses has a similarly nostalgic look.
These authentic vintage hand-embroidered Italian napkins will add a touch of homespun charm and nostalgia to your table.
This hand-glazed platter is subtly seasonal with pine cones and berries embossed on it, and can be just as useful for festive sides, such as Skye's chicory salad, as for the main dish.
Handcrafted in the Italian Alps, this hammered copper gratin dish is durable and stick resistant for all of your indulgent festive oven-to-table dishes.
A simple glass taper holder is effortlessly elegant whilst adding height and interest to a festive table.
How I Host, an exclusive Homes & Gardens video series that invites us into the homes of chefs, entertainers, and tastemakers who celebrate the art of gathering. Each guest shares their own approach to hosting, weaving together memory and nostalgia with personal style – from timeless tablescapes inspired by family traditions to menus that tell a story. Expect ideas, recipes, and small gestures that turn every occasion into something beautifully memorable.
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