What to ask before you commit a two-hundred-cover dining room to a tableware range.
Restaurant tableware fails in three ways: it chips, it does not stack, or it cannot be reordered. Everything else is a preference.
Before specifying a range, establish the replacement horizon. A collection that will still be in production in five years is worth more than a marginally more beautiful one that will not.
Chipping
Most chips originate at the foot, not the rim, and are caused by stacking rather than washing. Ask for the stack height the maker actually tests to, not the height that fits in a cupboard.
A thickened foot adds thirty grams and roughly doubles service life.
Reordering
Glaze batches drift. Ask whether the maker keeps a reference tile for your batch and whether they will match to it. We do, and we will, for eight years from first order.
Ask also what the minimum reorder is. A range with a twelve-piece minimum is a different commitment from one with a two-hundred-piece minimum.
Written by the Classic Ceramics studio. Questions about anything here are welcome —write to us.
