We ask new clients to begin with twelve to eighteen pieces. It sounds like a modest order. It is the single most useful decision in the whole process.

Why not a full service

A full service ordered from a photograph is a guess. It assumes that the plate suits your menu, that the rim suits your plating, that the weight suits your staff, and that your wash cycle treats the glaze kindly. Any one of those assumptions can be wrong, and the cost of being wrong at full volume is high for both sides.

Twelve to eighteen pieces are enough to test all of it, on your table, with your food, in your light.

What goes into a sample set

• Two or three main plates in the sizes your kitchen actually plates on.
• A short group of meze or starter bowls, including at least one long base.
• One dessert shape, with and without a white band.
• Coffee cup and saucer, because it is held rather than looked at.
• One or two decorated pieces, so you can see what hand painting does next to plain glaze under your own lighting.

What we watch during the test

How the plate reads at the pass and at the table. Whether the rim collects sauce where you do not want it. How the surface behaves after repeated washing. How service staff carry and stack it. Where it chips first — because it will, and we would rather know the point of weakness while it is still a sample.

Then, batches

Production follows in batches, shape by shape, so that a kitchen is never waiting on a single large delivery and never locked into a shape that did not survive its own service. Colour varies slightly between batches. That is a property of the material, and we plan around it rather than pretend otherwise.

CERAMICA NICEA works from a single atelier in İznik. Project enquiries: projects@ceramicanicea.com · +90 541 604 38 73. Everything begins with a sample set on your own table, under your own service.