Jono Pandolfi’s Cult-Favorite Dinnerware Is Popping Up in Philly

Jono Pandolfi pops up in Philly / Photograph by Regan Fletcher Stephens

In 2010, ceramicist Jono Pandolfi drove to the Philadelphia Navy Yard with samples piled in his car. He’d recently relaunched his New Jersey studio when Anthropologie placed an order for 400 of his Willy Nilly teapots — whimsical white-and-blue porcelain sets that Pandolfi describes as “Alice in Wonderland crazy.”

The timing, he says, was a boon to his growing business: “Anthropologie was the seed money that got this going for the second time.”

Sixteen years later, Pandolfi’s Union City, New Jersey, studio has grown to 30,000 square feet and a team of about 38, producing the distinctive, handmade dinnerware found at some of the best restaurants in the world, including Eleven Madison Park and Jean-Georges in New York, and River Twice, and Vetri here at home. His pieces also feature prominently on FX’s The Bear, where they’re used in Carmy’s ambitious fine-dining restaurant.

Jono Pandolfi’s signature dinnerware / Photograph courtesy of Jono Pandolfi

Along the way, Pandolfi’s plates have developed a following well beyond professional kitchens, both real and fictional, with home cooks scooping up the same understated Coupe entrée plates and pasta bowls they encounter in restaurants.

Now, Pandolfi is back in Philly for his first pop-up sale here, offering some 2,000 to 3,000 pieces in more than 60 shapes.

The idea grew out of the monthly sales at his Union City studio, an old soap factory just across the Hudson from Manhattan. On the first Friday of every month, the team opens the warehouse to shoppers, offering thousands of seconds and overstock pieces, as well as tours of the production facility, with food from local vendors. The events have developed a following of their own, drawing shoppers from well beyond the neighborhood, including some who take trips to New York City just for the sale.

 Photograph courtesy of Jono Pandolfi

On Thursday night in Kensington, a compact space on the ground floor of Ray Philly was filled to the brim with stylish shoppers perusing tables and shelves stacked with Pandolfi’s pieces. Among the finds, there are shallow bowls and plates in earthy browns, soothing blues, and vivid reds and yellows, along with sculptural coffee mugs, vases, and elegant oval serving trays. Much of it is discounted by roughly half.

The sale includes seconds — pieces with small imperfections like pinholes or glaze irregularities — alongside overstock and studio experiments. Items range in price from $5 butter plates and condiment bowls, $15 bread plates, $20 cereal bowls, and $25 coffee mugs to $52 oval trays, $75 round serving platters, and $90 serving bowls.

 Photograph by Regan Fletcher Stephens

The pop-up runs through September 21st, but Philadelphia may not have to wait another 16 years for Pandolfi’s next appearance: “If this is a success — and I feel like it already is — I want to come back,” he says, joking that next time he’d like to “rent out a gymnasium.”