Revol Caractere Deep Plate Set of 4 in Cinnamon

Look at the outer edge and the color stops. Revol leaves the rim unglazed on purpose, and the reason is not decoration: a bare fired edge takes a knock better than a glazed one. Glaze is glass, and glass chips.

• Bare rim by design The unglazed edge is the part most likely to be struck, and it is the part left hardest.
• Four to a case A matched set arrives together, so a table of four is served without hunting for a fourth.
• Deep, not flat An inch and a quarter of rise turns a nine inch plate into something that holds sauce.

Where Plates Actually Break

Almost every chip on a plate happens at the rim, because that is what meets the sink, the stack and the next plate. Glaze is a thin layer of glass over the clay, and a glass edge fractures where a bare ceramic one abrades. Leaving the rim raw trades a little shine for an edge that survives a busy kitchen. It also gives you something to feel: the difference between the smooth face and the matte edge is obvious the first time you pick one up.

Nine Inches and an Inch Deep

The rise is what makes this useful. A flat nine inch plate is a salad plate; this one carries an inch and a quarter of wall, so a risotto stays where it was put and a sauce pools in the middle instead of running to the table. It is a main course plate for food that moves, and the wrong shape for anything you want spread flat and photographed.

A Body of Dark Clay

The clay underneath is dark rather than white, which is why the bare rim reads as a band of earth against the cinnamon face. Every piece in this range is deliberately uneven, so no two rims fall at exactly the same height and a stack of four does not sit like a machined column. That is the intent rather than a fault, and it is worth knowing before the box is opened.

Heat, Stacking and the Edge

Can these go in the oven? Revol rates the range for oven, microwave, freezer and dishwasher. That is unusual breadth for a decorated plate and it comes from the firing rather than from any coating.

Will the raw rim stain? Unglazed ceramic is more open than glaze, so a strongly colored sauce left sitting on the edge can mark it. Rinsing before the plate dries handles it; scrubbing an already-dried mark does not.

Do four uneven plates stack safely? They do, and that is stated by the maker. The unevenness is in the profile of the edge rather than in the foot, so each plate still sits flat on the one below it.