Perhaps it's the binge-watching culture these days, but whenever I watch a show, I tend to become quite obsessed. And with the release of season four of The Bear hitting streaming services, I'm getting myself ready. 'How?' you ask. With the help of the mastermind and ceramic artist responsible for outfitting all the best restaurants in New York City and beyond (including The Bear), of course.
And perfectly timed with the arrival of the new season, Jono Pandolfi has released new colors to the Coupe collection, which has been featured in Carmy's very own restaurant. The four new eye-catching glazes — Lavender, Shiny Green, Sage, and Pink — are typically created exclusively for restaurants, but for a limited time, will be available to home cooks. If you've been looking for the best dinnerware sets money can buy, trust me: this is it.
But to understand what makes these plates so special, I spoke to the man behind the potter's wheel, Jono Pandolfi, to understand a little bit more about his craft, his creations, and the chefs who use his pieces. Here's what you need to know.
Though you can't see the inside glaze color, here, the Coupe bowl in Sage is shown, a light green, almost white color.
Simply owning the same plates that Carmy uses in The Bear is enough of a selling point, but actually, these plates are iconic enough in their own right. That's why the potter has become one of the biggest restaurant design secrets over the years.
"We sell the same exact plates to home cooks that we sell to the best restaurants in the world," Jono Pandolfi tells me. "All of our dinnerware is designed to stand up to tough restaurant kitchens as well as your toddler or your dishwasher."
And while top chefs may have a few more options when it comes to customization (including custom glazes and backstamps), when it comes to quality, there is no compromise.
Jono Pandolfi's business is completely handmade, with more than 30 employees working to create around 1,000 pieces of pottery daily.
So, why have these plates earned themselves a spot in some of the world's best restaurants? "It's probably the fact that they were designed to frame dishes in a way that highlights the food without being visually imposing," explains Jono.
Mastering how to set a table like a world-class restaurant begins with considering how the food will sit. Jono Pandolfi also offers over 50 different shapes to restaurateurs in two different colors of clays and over 15 different glazes — it’s ideal for businesses (or in this case, homeowners) with a specific vision. "Whatever a restaurant needs, we can make it," he adds.
The brand chose four specific colors for the “Host Like a Chef” collection — Pink, Shiny Green, Lavender, and Sage — because of the exciting ways some of their top clients have incorporated color in their table arrangements.
"Hail Fellow Well Met in Arkansas uses our pink glaze a lot, for everything from roasted cauliflower to French toast, and it always looks incredible," says Jono. "Same story with Moonflower in the West Village — they use our Lavender glaze for many of their dinnerware pieces and we’re blown away by how well it complements their vibrant interior design."
It's the perfect addition to any colorful dining room as well as a refined pop of color in a more neutral kitchen.
Jono is a New York-based ceramist artist renowned for making serveware in all of the best New York restaurants, and restaurants around the US. When Jono started the company in 2004, he had a simple mission: to design unique dinnerware options for the hospitality industry. He started small, with one wheel and one kiln, and collaborated with chefs, taking risks and learning from his mistakes. Then and now, his priority is to work directly with our clients, responding quickly and thoughtfully to their needs in ways that larger manufacturers can’t, resulting in dinnerware with a personal feel that sets our clients’ restaurants and dining rooms apart.
As for the specifics, the brand has a few clays and many glazes that it uses, and they have all been pretty thoroughly vetted for durability in the hospitality setting. However, no particular type of clay or glaze acts as the secret ingredient.
"What's important to quality is that things are fired properly and to the correct temperature," says Jono. "This is what creates a durable product."
Additionally, the glazes include a touch of micro-texture that gives their surface a nice, gloss-matte mixture. "That texture also serves to prevent cutlery marking, or the dark lines that sometimes appear on plates," adds Jono.
The Coupe collection in Toasted clay with white glaze is the exact collection used in the TV series.
However, if you're a fan of The Bear, you may want to stick to the classics. The Coupe collection in Toasted clay with white glaze — that’s the set you will recognize from Carmy's restaurant.
To make it even easier to shop these dinner plates, Jono Pandolfi has a page on their site where you can shop all of the shapes featured on the show. Below are a few standout pieces to start building your collection, plus plates inspired by the look of The Bear if you can't quite justify the prices of these professional-quality pieces.
As someone who loves to cook (and loves to watch Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri cook), learning more about the designer behind the plates circulating the restaurant scene was like being let in on a secret.
However, hosting like a chef takes on many shapes. From searching for the best kitchen appliance brands to knowing the utensils to keep or ditch, a chef knows their details.
