MEPRADue Ice Oro 5 Piece Place Setting, Medium

I feel good using the spoons

I wanted to love this place setting. It's stylish and it's burnished. So why don't I like it?PROS1) The Coffee Spoon.2) Nice burnished finish.CONS1) The balance is off. It's heavy at the wrong end. (It should be heavier at the business end, not the handle end. I kept dropping them.)2) The soup spoon is very w i d e. (I couldn't get it in my mouth.)3) This place-setting is just poorly designed.I feel badly, when I have to give a product a less than stellar review - especially, when it *looks* so nice. But functionality comes in to play with silverware - and this just isn't functional. The second star is for the Coffee Spoon, which while still improperly balanced, is a *Coffee Spoon.*

If I had a bit more money and if I did more entertaining, I would almost certainly purchase a six-place or eight-place sitting of this amazing Mepra five-piece set.There are two things that really stand out about this table-wear. First, the pieces are gorgeous to look at and wonderful to hold. The gold plate is brushed on, so you have a lovely dull gold rather than a mirror-like finish. In tablewear I prefer brushed gold: it doesn't show fingerprints or smudges and just looks lovelier in my opinion than the shinier stuff. Though let me add, this is really high quality stuff, and it seems to glow more than reflect. And by the way, while in the photo these may look rather dainty, they are actually delightfully hefty for their size, much heavier than you would anticipate. The second thing that stands out is that these utensils are extremely practical. I hate few things more than picking up an exceptionally beautiful designer fork, only to discover that it is pretty much useless as a utensil. Here, however, both forks are close to perfect, as is the knife. The soup spoon isn't quite as large as I would prefer, but I'll admit that my preferences in spoons run a tad to the large size. The coffee spoon is too small for most uses, but I have to admit that it is fun to use such a well made yet dainty spoon in drinking tea or coffee.Look, this is an expensive flatware set and whether you get it will hinge on whether you want brushed gold and whether you can afford it. I'll be blunt: if I had the money, I would get several sets of this. I just think that they are gorgeous yet easy to use, and most of all deliciously unique looking. I can't imagine anyone being disappointed with these. If you are getting married, put it on your registry. Maybe those aunts and uncles you rarely see will each get one or two place sittings. However you get these, you will be happy with them.

Mepra Due Ice Oro is designed and made in Italy. This is probably the most unique set of flatware I've ever used due to the unusual shape and styling of the pieces combined with the titanium coated "ice" or brushed gold finish over 18/10 stainless steel. The spoon and fork handles are pencil thin (but a bit thinner and flatter), and the spoon bowls have a more rounded appearance than any I've seen before. This 5-piece set for one person includes a coffee spoon (5-1/4"), table spoon (7"), table knife (9"), salad fork (7") and table fork (8"). The sizing is fairly typical of what's customarily used in America, except the small spoon is a petite European sized spoon for coffee and one should not expect a customary American style teaspoon.The pieces have a solid heft to them, but are more delicate looking and lighter weight than other Mepra sets I've used. The pieces are smooth with nicely rounded edges, and the fork and spoon handles have a slight upward curvature. I think the pieces are all well balanced and comfortable to hold, plus the bowl of the table spoon and fork tines are comfortable for my mouth. The bowl of the table spoon may be wide for some, but it's shallow enough that it's comfortable for me. The knife has fine tooth serrations that make it sharp and capable of cutting rather than tearing meat and other items.Mepra Due Ice Oro is a high end, luxury design that's an attention grabber and likely to be a topic of dinner conversation. But at first I just didn't have a vision of what it would match given the brushed gold color, and the pieces look small next to dishes I thought they would match. I do have an eclectic mix of single sets of flatware and china and fell in love with my set of Mepra Due Ice Oro paired with my set of Lenox Gluckstein Darius Gold bone china.  Lenox Gluckstein Darius Gold 5-Piece Place Set  I'm attaching informal photos as I think the two look modern and gorgeous together. I always admired the quality and novelty of Mepra Due Ice Oro, but now I can imagine it as flatware I actually want to purchase. I don't know about the long range durability of the gold finish, but I think Mepra Due Ice Oro is a high quality, beautiful set of Italian flatware that gets 5 stars from me.