These plates were modeled after the simple, red terracotta plates you see by the hundreds in history museums in Rome. When designing these plates, I wanted them to look like they were made by hand by someone without access to machinery; some remote Portuguese craftsperson in the 3rd century who heard someone describe fancy dishes they saw in a city. The slight imperfections and undulations in the shape add to the humanity and soul of each dish, while still remaining symmetrical and “traditional”. I wanted to make something highly utilitarian as well, and these are perfect for everyday use and stack beautifully.
I made the first prototypes for these plates after speaking with several chefs about their needs- something sturdy, simple, and easy to handle by the staff. Around the same time, I was watching the The Chefs Table on Netflix, and became enamored with Faviken and Noma and their style. These plates were my response to the team at those restaurants respect for simplicity in both plating and recipes, allowing locally sourced but very unique ingredients tell a story of place through food.
These plates are the tentpole of the Skali Line. The name Skali is found several times on the English Ordnance Survey map of the British Isles. A skali was a small, isolated homestead, and there are several tiny little villages scattered throughout the Faroe Islands and Scotland with that name- evidence of settlement of Vikings and Scandinavian peoples long forgotten but remnant in name. I love the daydreaming approach you can take of looking back at history as a non-Historian. It is an exercise in empathy to put yourself in the shoes of this hybrid community and imagine what sort of tableware they may have eaten off of- perhaps gull eggs and smoked fish? Would it have tasted like something you could eat at Faviken or Noma?
-Mark Warren, Co-Founder and Creative Director
March 2021
