Frequently Asked Questions
Materials & Care
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Our pieces are made from porcelain clay and glaze recipes we develop in house. The result is a dense, non-porous, exceptionally durable body we call restaurant-grade porcelain, handmade in our Providence, Rhode Island studio.
Read more: Handcrafted in Rhode Island, How Every Piece Is Made →
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Yes. Because we formulate our glazes entirely in house, we have complete visibility into every ingredient. We don't use lead or cadmium. We don't want to handle them in our studio, and you don't want them on your dinner table. That isn't a marketing position, it's a practical one.
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Every piece is made for daily use, and all of it is dishwasher and microwave safe. Avoid extreme temperature swings, like moving a piece from a hot oven straight into the freezer, and it will hold up for decades.
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Very. Our porcelain is in daily service in professional kitchens, from 50-seat neighborhood restaurants to one that serves 1,500 diners in a day, and the pieces come back looking untouched. Firing fully vitrifies the clay, which makes it non-porous and highly resistant to chipping and crazing through repeated commercial dishwasher cycles. If it holds up to a full day of restaurant service, it will handle your kitchen for decades.
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No. Each glaze is formulated to fit our clay body precisely, so it moves with the porcelain rather than against it under thermal stress. That fit is what prevents crazing, and it's the thing we test hardest before a glaze goes into production.
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Sometimes, and they aren't what they look like. Those faint gray lines aren't scratches in the glaze. They're tiny deposits of soft metal left behind because our porcelain is harder than the fork. Buff them off with a powdered cleanser like Bon Ami on a damp sponge or a Scotch-Brite pad, and the surface goes back to the way it left our studio.
Read more: Care, Use, and the Truth About Silverware Marks →
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The foot ring is unglazed, which is standard for good porcelain, and every one is sanded smooth before it leaves the studio. Stacking scratches usually come from softer or poorly fitted glazes, or from stoneware, whose foot rings are naturally rougher. Our glazes are formulated for our clay body and are unusually hard. These pieces are stacked and restacked daily in restaurant kitchens, and we have never had a report of scratching.
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Yes. Place a piece in a cold oven and let it heat gradually with the oven. Avoid moving a piece from the refrigerator or a cold surface directly into a hot oven, and don't set a hot piece down on a cold surface right out of the oven.
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It isn't a regulated term, so any brand can use it. For us it means three specific things: a fully vitrified clay body that's non-porous and highly resistant to chipping, glazes formulated in house to fit that body precisely so they won't craze under thermal stress, and proven performance in working kitchens, from 50-seat neighborhood restaurants to one serving 1,500 diners in a day. A piece that survives nightly commercial dishwasher cycles and the general chaos of a kitchen without chipping, crazing, or fading has earned the description.
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Nearly. These are handmade from molds, so slight variation in size, glaze, and finish is part of the process. We call it signs of life. It's evidence of the person who made the piece, and it's the reason no other table looks quite like yours.
Company & Craft
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We're product designers who make ceramics, not traditional potters. That distinction matters. Traditional pottery tends to be about the individual expression of the maker. Product design is about the person using the object. That shift in perspective is what makes our pieces perform the way they do in daily use.
Between us we have more than 40 combined years designing for brands like New Balance, Bose, and OXO, and we bring the same discipline to porcelain: 3D modeling, prototyping, materials testing, and quality standards set before anything goes into production. We formulate our own clay and glaze recipes in house and make every piece under our own roof in Providence, Rhode Island. Most ceramic brands either outsource production or build with off-the-shelf materials. We don't.
Read more: Handcrafted in Rhode Island, How Every Piece Is Made →
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Every piece is designed and handcrafted in our studio in Providence, Rhode Island.
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We didn't start here. Myrth ran out of Boston for nine years before we moved to Rhode Island in 2024. Boston evolved in a direction that made sense for a lot of people. We weren't among them. By the time we left, manufacturing space was nearly impossible to find, and the maker community we'd been part of had thinned considerably. Providence fit us better.
Our studio is in Phillipsdale Landing, a 130-year-old mill complex on the banks of the Seekonk River. Lindquist Object, the vegetable-tanned leather goods studio, is our next-door neighbor, and the complex is full of makers and small manufacturers working in their own spaces. Suppliers for wood, metal, and specialty materials are close by, so we can source what we need without the logistics overhead of a bigger, more expensive city.
Johnson and Wales and RISD are both nearby, and we welcome industrial design students into the studio from time to time. The food scene here is genuinely world class, which matters when your work ends up on restaurant tables. We're only a few miles from the chefs who use our pieces every night, which, in Rhode Island, is basically a trek.
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Yes. Our East Providence studio is open by appointment.
Ordering & Shipping
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It depends on what you're ordering. Individual pieces in our six core glazes are in stock and ship within seven business days. Place settings are made to order, with a lead time of three to four weeks before shipping. If you need pieces by a specific date, write to hello@myrth.us before you order and we'll tell you what's possible.
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Start with the pieces you use every day. For most people that's a dinner plate, a Tasting Bowl, and a Swig Cup. Once those feel right, everything else builds from there. Our glazes are made to mix, so there's no need to commit to a single one at the start. Most of our customers don't.
Read more: How to Build a Tableware Set, Where We'd Start You →
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Yes, and we encourage it. Our glazes are made to work together, and mixing across pieces is the best way to build a collection that feels personal rather than matched. There's no minimum per glaze.
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Yes. We run a registry service for weddings, anniversaries, and any other occasion that calls for a table.
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Only through our hospitality program. Custom glazes and custom forms take months of development, and the scale of a restaurant or hotel project is what makes that time worth spending. We don't take custom or personalized runs for gifts or individual orders.
If you're giving Myrth as a gift, a gift card lets the recipient choose their own pieces and glazes.
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Yes. We make restaurant-grade porcelain for professional kitchens and design projects of any size, with trade pricing, custom glaze development for larger programs, and lead times built backward from your opening date.
See our Hospitality page → or write to trade@myrth.us.
For shipping, order fulfillment, or general terms and conditions, please use the links in the footer.