Notes From The Nest

There’s something rather lovely about opening the cupboard and reaching for a plate that makes you smile.

For too long, our everyday tableware has been expected to quietly blend into the background. White plates. Plain bowls. Sensible sets. But we think the things we use every day deserve a little more personality.

A beautifully painted bowl can turn a simple bowl of pasta into something that feels special. A colourful side plate makes even tea and cake look considered. And a table laid with pieces collected because you genuinely love them has an effortless charm that a perfectly matching dinner service rarely achieves.

At Lesser Spotted, we’re rather fond of tableware that brings something more to the table.

A little piece of the Mediterranean at home

Some of our favourite pieces have their roots in the traditional ceramics of Spain and Portugal, where colour and pattern have been part of everyday tables for generations.

Our hand-painted Spanish ceramics are a wonderful example. Traditional Andalusian-inspired motifs of pomegranates, birds, flowers and trailing ferns are painted onto plates and bowls in rich greens, earthy burnt sienna, indigo and blue.

Then there are the Lebrillo bowls – traditional Spanish bowls with their distinctive straight sides and beautifully decorated interiors.

Originally practical household pieces, today they’re just as wonderful filled with salad or fruit as they are sitting on a kitchen island purely to be admired.

And that, perhaps, is what we love most about them: they’re useful and beautiful in equal measure.

The charm of something made by hand

Perfectly uniform tableware has its place, but there is something much more interesting about a piece where you can see the hand of the person who made it.

A brushstroke that isn’t quite identical to the one before it. A tiny variation in colour. A motif that sits ever so slightly differently from plate to plate.

These aren’t imperfections. They’re character.

Our Portuguese hand-painted ceramics embrace exactly that spirit. From bold cobalt blue and white fern designs to sweeping green and blue peacock patterns, each piece has a decorative quality that makes it feel discovered rather than mass-produced.

The green shell collection is another favourite, with its repeated fan-shell motif inspired by the Royal Palaces of Sintra. It feels fresh and contemporary while still carrying a wonderful sense of Portuguese history and craftsmanship.

These are the sorts of pieces you bring home from a holiday and treasure for years – except, happily, there’s no need to find room for four dinner plates in your hand luggage.

Don’t save the good plates for best

We’re firmly of the opinion that beautiful things should be used.

That gorgeous bowl doesn’t need to wait for a dinner party. Fill it with strawberries on a Tuesday morning. Serve Sunday-night pasta in it. Leave it on the kitchen table piled high with lemons.

The same goes for decorative plates.

Use colourful side plates for toast at breakfast, cake in the afternoon, olives with drinks or dessert after supper. Layer patterned plates over a simple tablecloth, mix them with plain pieces you already own, or combine different designs around the table.

A table feels far more personal when it has evolved rather than arrived in one enormous matching box.

Mix, don’t match

One of the easiest ways to create an interesting table is to stop worrying about everything matching.

Start with colour instead.

Pick out a green from a hand-painted plate and echo it in your napkins. Pair cobalt blue ceramics with a striped or floral tablecloth. Mix earthy terracotta and burnt sienna with natural linens and woven placemats.

You can even mix patterns. Florals, ferns, birds and stripes can happily sit together when there is a colour running through them that ties everything together.

The result should feel collected, relaxed and slightly unexpected.

In other words, it should feel like your table.

Tableware as art

Of course, a plate doesn’t have to spend its life waiting for dinner.

Some pieces are simply too beautiful to hide in a cupboard.

A large painted bowl can become the centrepiece of a dining table. A decorative plate can sit on an open shelf alongside books, glassware and favourite objects. Smaller bowls are perfect for jewellery, keys and all those little things that otherwise seem to migrate around the house.

Our Matisse-inspired plates take this idea particularly literally. With expressive brushstrokes, playful shapes and joyful colour, they blur the line between tableware and artwork.

And why shouldn’t they?

The objects we surround ourselves with don’t have to be purely practical or purely decorative. The best ones often manage to be both.

Create a table worth gathering around

Ultimately, setting a beautiful table isn’t about getting everything perfect.

It’s about creating somewhere people want to sit.

A generous bowl in the middle of the table. Plates with a story behind them. Linen napkins that don’t quite match. Food passed around, glasses topped up and conversations that last longer than expected.

Those are the tables we remember.

So whether you fall for a traditional Spanish Lebrillo, a wonderfully bold Portuguese pattern or a plate that looks almost too beautiful to eat from, choose pieces that bring you a little joy every time you use them.

Because everyday dinner deserves the good plates too.