Frequently Asked Questions
Products
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Our pieces are crafted from proprietary, in-house developed porcelain clay and glaze recipes. This results in a dense, non-porous, and exceptionally durable product we classify as restaurant-grade porcelain, handmade in our East Providence, Rhode Island studio.
Read more: Handcrafted in Rhode Island — How Every Piece Is Made →
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Yes. Because we custom-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's not a marketing position, it's a practical one.
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All Myrth ceramics are designed for daily use and are completely dishwasher safe and microwave safe. While durable, avoid extreme temperature changes such as taking a piece from a hot oven directly into a freezer. Our pieces are also oven safe, place them in a cold oven and heat gradually. For the full guide, visit our Care + Use page.
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Very. Our porcelain is tested in professional kitchens doing 50 to 1,500 covers a night, and the pieces come back looking untouched. Our firing fully vitrifies the clay and makes it non-porous and highly resistant to chipping and crazing through repeated commercial dishwasher cycles. If it survives nightly restaurant service, it will handle your home kitchen for decades.
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No. Our porcelain is formulated specifically to resist both. Our firing fully vitrifies the clay, making it non-porous and highly resistant to chipping and crazing even through repeated commercial dishwasher cycles. This is something we test rigorously before any glaze goes into production.
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Our ceramics are engineered for durability, but because we use a variety of nuanced glaze finishes, you may occasionally see light marks left by silverware or other cutlery on the surface. These are typically not scratches in the glaze itself, but rather tiny deposits of soft metal from the cutlery, because our porcelain is so resilient. These marks can be easily removed by buffing the surface with a powdered cleanser like Bon Ami on a damp sponge or Scotch-Brite pad. This simple maintenance keeps your pieces looking like the day they left our studio, even after years of heavy use in a professional or home kitchen.
Read more about Care, Use & The Truth About Silverware Marks.
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The footring is unglazed, which is standard for quality porcelain. Scratching from stacking is usually a glaze issue (softer or poorly formulated glazes mark easily) or a clay issue: stoneware footrings are naturally rougher than porcelain. Our glazes are formulated specifically for our clay body and are unusually hard and resilient, and every footring is sanded smooth before it leaves the studio. These pieces are used daily in restaurant kitchens and we've never had a report of scratching from stacking.
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Yes. Place your Myrth pieces in a cold oven and let them heat gradually with it. Avoid moving a piece directly from the refrigerator or a cold surface into a hot oven, and avoid placing a hot piece onto a cold surface immediately after. For the full guide, visit our Care + Use page.
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Restaurant-grade isn't a regulated term — any brand can use it. For us, it describes three specific things: a fully vitrified clay body that's non-porous and highly resistant to chipping, glazes formulated in-house to fit our clay body precisely so they won't craze under thermal stress, and proven performance in professional kitchens, from 50-seat neighborhood spots to restaurants doing 1,500 covers on a busy summer night. If a piece can survive nightly commercial dishwasher cycles and the general chaos of a working kitchen without chipping, crazing, or fading, it earns that description. Ours do.
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As a handcrafted molded product, slight variations in size, color, and finish are inherent and celebrated, making each piece unique. We call these subtle differences “signs of life”, as they are evidence of the human that made each piece, and they are a signature of the high-quality, artisanal process.
Company & Craft
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We're product designers who make ceramics, not traditional potters. That distinction matters. Traditional pottery is often 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 differently in daily use.
Before starting Myrth, we spent decades designing products for brands like New Balance and Bose, and we apply the same discipline here: 3D modeling, prototyping, materials testing, and rigorous quality standards before anything goes into production. We bring over four decades of combined design experience to everything we make, custom-formulate our clay and glaze recipes entirely in-house, and make every piece under our own roof in East Providence, Rhode Island. Most ceramic brands either outsource production or use off-the-shelf materials. We don't.
Read more: Handcrafted in Rhode Island — How Every Piece Is Made →
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Every piece of Myrth porcelain is designed and handcrafted in our studio in East Providence, Rhode Island.
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We didn't start here. Myrth ran out of Boston for nine years before we made the move to Rhode Island in 2024. Boston evolved in a direction that made a lot of sense for a lot of people. We just weren't among them. By the time we left, manufacturing space was nearly impossible to find, and the creative and 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 in East Providence. 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 individual spaces. Nearby suppliers for wood, metal, and specialty materials mean we can source what we need without the logistics overhead of a bigger, more expensive city.
Providence also has Johnson and Wales and RISD 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, RI studio is open By Appointment. Please visit our Visit page for booking details.
Ordering & Shipping
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It depends on what you're ordering. Individual pieces in our core glazes are in stock and ready to ship within 7 business days of purchase. Place settings and Studio Edition glazes like Ume are made to order in our East Providence studio, with a lead time of 3 to 4 weeks before shipping. If you need pieces by a specific date, reach out before ordering and we'll let you know what's possible.
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Start with the pieces you use every day. For most people that's a dinner plate, a bowl, and a mug. Once those feel right, everything else builds naturally from there. Our glazes are designed to mix and match, so you don't need to commit to a single color from the start. Most of our customers don't.
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Yes, and we encourage it. Our glazes are designed to work together, and mixing colors across pieces is one of the best ways to build a collection that feels personal rather than matched. There's no minimum per color for consumer orders. For hospitality trade orders, the minimum is 12 pieces per item type.
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Yes! We offer a registry service for weddings, anniversaries, or any special occasion. You can find more information and sign up on our Registry page.
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Yes. Myrth tableware is designed for professional kitchens and we work with restaurants and hotels of all sizes. Visit our Hospitality page or reach out at abby@myrth.us to discuss your project.
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Yes, for large hospitality orders. If you're opening a restaurant or hotel and want a glaze developed specifically for your space, get in touch at trade@myrth.us and we'll talk through what's possible.
For information on shipping, order fulfilment, or general terms and conditions please use the links in the footer.