Service à la russe

Service à la russe (French, "service in the Russian style") is a manner of dining that involves courses being brought to the table sequentially. It contrasts with service à la française ("service in the French style") in which all the food is brought out at once, in an impressive display.

Russian Ambassador Alexander Kurakin is credited with bringing service à la russe to France in the early 19th century. It later caught on in England and is now the style in which most modern Western restaurants serve food (with some significant modifications).

For the most correct service à la russe, the following must be observed:

The place setting (called a cover) for each guest includes a service plate, all the necessary cutlery except those required for dessert, and stemmed glasses for water, wines and champagne. Atop the service plate is a rolled napkin, and atop that is the place card. Above the plate is a saltcellar, nut dish, and a menu.

The cutlery to the right of the service plate are, from the outside in, the oyster fork resting in the bowl of the soup spoon, the fish knife, the meat knife and the salad knife (or fruit knife). On the left, from the outside in, are the fish fork, the meat fork and a salad fork (or fruit fork). (If both a salad and a fruit course are served, the necessary extra flatware must be brought out on a platter, as it is bad form to have more than three knives or forks on the table at once, the oyster fork excepted.)

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Wikipedia