Soon to Be Open: Manor Row Comes to Warsaw

Usually It Works the Other Way Around

Most of the time we go to the restaurant. We pack a case of samples and turn up at the pass, or we ship a set out and run the whole thing over Zoom — walking through the catalogue together, picking colours, picking shapes. When a client already knows their menu and their room, that is not a hard task. It works.

What it does not do is let you see everything. In a suitcase you carry what fits. On a screen you see what the photograph shows. Meeting in person puts the whole range on the table at once, and that is where the creativity and the inspiration open up — a shape someone wasn't looking for, next to a glaze they hadn't considered.

The First Time a Restaurant Came to Us

Manor Row reversed the usual direction. Chef Hass and his team booked an early flight from Bradford on the Wednesday morning and came to Warsaw to see the range in person. It is the first time a restaurant group has made that journey to us rather than the other way around.

I picked them up first thing. We had a quick lunch at a shopping centre — nothing formal, just somewhere to sit and talk before the work started. I proposed we move to my home office for the rest of the day — more space, more light, and a friendlier, more homey setting to lay out every collection, every shape, every colour at once.

Manor Row

Manor Row opens in Bradford in late August — modern South Asian cooking, rooted in heritage. The team already runs restaurants in Leeds, so they came in knowing what survives a busy service and what does not. The questions were the practical ones: weight, how pieces stack, how a reactive glaze reads under warm light, how a charred lamb chop or a butter chicken sits on a given rim.

Having the full range in front of them changed how the choosing went. Pieces got picked up, put down, and returned to an hour later next to something else. That kind of unhurried comparison is hard to arrange in a working restaurant, where a tableware tasting has to fit between prep and service.

Shisha, and a Journal Entry

We finished the day over shisha. The team are Muslim, and shisha is something they genuinely enjoy, so it made for an easy end to a long day. By the evening it no longer felt like a supplier meeting.

This is our journal, and we write it up when a day earns it. This one did — it was a genuinely unique experience with the Manor Row team, and I wanted it told.

We are looking forward to seeing the room in Bradford when it opens, and to seeing what comes out of that kitchen on our pieces.

Welcome to the table, Manor Row.