It is difficult to say when square plates first appeared on restaurant tables. Some say they migrated from midcentury Scandinavia, others from midcentury California. The strongest case by anecdote is that the plates, in use in Japan for centuries, came into use along with fusion cooking. According to Holli Roberts of the Korin Japanese Trading Corporation, the most common plate for grilled fish in Japan is a rectangle.
David Burke remembers using them at the River Café in the 1980's; Eric Ripert saw his first one at Cello in the mid-1990's; in 1996 Iacopo Falai ate off a square plate at La Maison de Marc Veyrat in Annecy, France, possibly the first restaurant to put them into regular use.
Bernardaud, the storied Limoges porcelain maker, does a brisk trade with high-end restaurants and hotels. (If you peek at the underside of a plate at the Fat Duck near London, L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon in Paris or Jean Georges in New York, you will find its insignia.) Michel Bernardaud, the company's president, recalled over the phone that it made its first square plate in 1995 at the request of the eccentric Mr. Veyrat.
"He has a signature dish -- duck liver served in two versions, one cold and one warm -- and so we designed a rectangular tray with two square plates," Mr. Bernardaud said. "One square would come from the fridge and the other from the oven."
Now this sort of side-by-side eating is familiar. The restaurant Daniel uses a pair of square Bernardaud plates for its Duo of Yellowfin Tuna, one with marinated raw tuna, the second with tuna seared a la plancha. For Alto, the ambitious Italian restaurant, the chef, Scott Conant, chose plates that encourage a linear approach.
"When you're taking something familiar and expanding on that familiarity, the presentation is very important," Mr. Conant said. "Especially with Italian food. Italian food has always been known as a certain thing, and my goal is to push it a little bit. Some of it is familiar, but what you get from the presentation is that it's moved far beyond what you'd assume is Italian."