The Style Makers’ French Garden Bistro

Bonjour everyone. We are Laurie and Réli aka The Style Makers, we are both interior stylists and passionate about creating gorgeous tablescapes.

We were really inspired by the new Bon Appetit collection to create our very own French Garden Bistro.

With Réli having grown up in the South of France and Laurie being a dedicated fan of the Med holidays it was a match made in heaven to bring the Marseille sunshine to your tables.

We tapped into the super fun ‘Cafe Culture’ trend going around on social where the idea is to invite your friends over to your house for a weekend morning coffee or brunch and create a coffee shop atmosphere (as opposed to actually going to a coffee shop). It is all about casual and effortless, but with little extra touches, like making your own coffee menu.

To create this look we went for a gingham tablecloth and napkins reminiscent of those French country tables. We used the raffia placemats for a bit of texture, then for the full fun factor we mixed and matched the Lemon, Olive and Sardines enamel plates, they are all so playful and pack a colour punch.

We brought in some fun contrasting stripes via the pretty multicoloured glasses and added a selection of the bud vases that we quickly filled with flowers from the garden.

We used Romano peppers as name tags, and used paint pens to write all the guests names on.

To finish the look Laurie created a super quick and easy wow-factor vegetable centre piece using a cake stand and one of the enamel bowls. She filled those up with a mix of vine tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and lemons that she discreetly attached together using bamboo sticks and tooth picks so that it looks like they are magically holding together and defying gravity.

For our menu we stuck to a French theme with some South of France classics like (homemade) olive tapenade on toast, crudités platter with anchoiade (a scrumptious anchovy vinaigrette).

As for our coffee menu, we had the classic iced coffee but for the Southern French twist we added a touch of lavender cordial (yes it’s a thing) and it is surprisingly delicious.