Ryo Makita: Handmade Japanese Tableware and How to Choose It

Ryo Makita works in Gifu, Japan, in Japanese pottery (ceramic) and pottery (ceramic), and the pieces stand apart from most tableware by shape alone: animal forms—bears, pandas, tapirs, a sea bream—cast as egg stands, ladle rests, cube objects, and lidded containers rather than plain plates. If you are choosing among them, the useful distinction is not which animal you prefer but which function the piece is actually built to serve.

This black bear egg stand shows the approach: the bear's body is hand-painted in black glaze over the pottery body, and the whole piece is shaped to hold a single egg upright rather than to sit flat like a plate. At 3cm tall, it is one of the smaller pieces in the range—closer to a place-setting accent than a serving object.

What the shapes are for

Most of Ryo Makita's current pieces fall under an "Other" category rather than the usual plate or bowl types, which reflects the shapes themselves: cube objects, egg stands, ladle rests, and lidded containers don't map neatly onto standard tableware categories. A smaller number are Plate, Cooking Utensils, a Lidded Container, a Bowl, and a Small Plate. The cube objects in particular come in a run of sizes—an elephant at 10.3cm, a tapir at 10.2cm, a panda at 10.6cm, a pig at 9.7cm, and a giraffe reaching 15cm—so if you want a matched set on a shelf, the giraffe will stand noticeably taller than the rest.

The functional pieces have their own sizing logic. A calico cat ladle rest measures 6.7cm, sized to cradle the handle of a ladle rather than sit as a display object. A polar bear ladle stand is larger at 11cm by 7.7cm by 7.5cm, built with enough footprint to hold a ladle steady on a counter or stovetop without tipping.

Choosing a lidded piece

This sea bream lidded bowl is shaped like the fish itself, with a lid that lifts off rather than a flat plate underneath. At 7.5cm by 6.5cm, it is sized for a single portion—soy sauce, a condiment, or a small side dish kept covered until served. Because the lid is part of the sculpted form rather than a separate flat disc, it only fits this one bowl, which is worth knowing if you are buying it as a functional piece rather than a display object.

Plates and bowls in the range

Alongside the animal objects, Ryo Makita also makes flatter serving pieces. A panda serving plate sits at 2.7cm and a panda bread plate at 2.3cm, both shallow enough to keep the painted design as the visual focus rather than being hidden by a raised rim.

The panda serving bowl goes a step further than the plates: it is hand-painted with the same panda motif but shaped with a 5.9cm rise, deep enough to hold rice or a side dish rather than lay food flat. Where the flat panda plates keep the painting purely decorative, the depth here means the bowl actually holds volume—useful if you want the animal motif on a piece you serve from rather than just display.

Where to start

For a first piece, the panda serving bowl or the sea bream lidded bowl both work as functional tableware rather than pure display, while the cube objects and egg stands suit a shelf or a place-setting accent. See the full range in the Ryo Makita collection, the sea bream piece alongside related work in Sea Bream (Tai) Motif Pottery, and the flatter serving pieces under Plate and Bowl Collection.