Here’s the thing about chairs: Comfort is relative. The armchair you curl into with a novel should swallow you whole; the desk chair you work in needs posture-perfect ergonomics; the lounger on your patio is about sinking back with an Aperol spritz. Dining chairs, however, occupy a strange middle ground. They can’t be too soft (you’ll slouch and struggle to eat), too stiff (you’ll bolt before dessert) or too bulky (no one will fit around the table). And unlike your office chair, they also need to look good—ideally like a designer accent, without the price tag to match.
Which is why I teamed up with a handful of PureWow editors to test some dining chairs firsthand. We paid attention to how they felt during dinner (and even remote workdays), how their fabrics stood up to spills and whether the silhouettes held their own against luxury options. From Castlery to Article to Wayfair, here are the five dining chairs that ticked every box on our list.
