Cuisine

Doki Japanese Tableware Shop Moved: Reopening at Harrow Weald in August

Doki was established in 1978 as Masyu Artware, and was then re-named Utsuwa-no-Yakata, before becoming Doki as it is known today.The Doki shop is moving now to a new premises in Harrow Weald in August. At HYPER JAPAN 2011 it will be presenting a selection of ceramics and pottery imported directly from Japan. 

Doki is written as 土器 in Japanese kanji characters, and means earthenware. It is the term used to describe ancient Japanese earthenware, and Doki today provides people living in the UK with the opportunity to buy authentic, beautiful Japanese ceramics, cookware, glassware, lacquerware and more. Doki’s range of products is the most extensive in Europe, and the next best thing to going crockery shopping in Tokyo!

In Japan, almost as much care goes into the presentation of cuisine as the preparation. A traditional kaiseki Japanese chef will be as strict in choosing the dish in or plate on which to serve each dish as he will be in selecting the seasonal ingredients with which to make it. All Japanese food, but particularly kaiseki, focuses on engaging all five senses (gokan), using the five flavours (gomi), and the five colours (goshiki: red, black, white, blue, yellow), too. And so the arrangement and the presentation of the food are integral to creating and maintaining this balance between flavours, senses and colours. Ceramics decorated with seasonal motifs, such as birds or flowers, are particularly useful in evoking the season. This importance of tableware in food helps to explain why the ceramics industry is so thriving in Japan today.

But you don’t have to be working in a highly ritualised culinary environment to have fun with your tableware. Doki products come in a wonderful variety of patterns, shapes and colours, so as you build up a collection you can mix and match with the season, the food, the weather or the flowers arranged on your table. Unlike the UK, where it’s normally the done thing to serve food on matching tableware, Japanese people are less concerned with an overall matching system, and focus more on the beauty of each individual piece.