Chef Yotam Ottolenghi’s New Vases Are Giving Off Serious ‘White Lotus’ Vibes

Chef and cookbook author Yotam Ottolenghi has legions of devotees—but his latest release, a collection of Sicilian-inspired vases launching today through the digital retailer Design Quarters, may tap into a whole new fan base. Designed for Serax by the artist Ivo Bisignano, the ceramics are a whimsical twist on the classic Sicilian vases known as testa di moro, or Moor’s heads.

Any fan of the second season of HBO’s White Lotus knows the story of the hand-painted heads, which are a staple of Sicilian decor. “Hey, what is it with these head things?” Ethan asks hotel employee Rocco when checking into his room on the island. He learns that they hark back to a folktale about a Moorish man who came to the island more than a thousand years ago and fell in love with a local woman. When she found out that he had a wife and family back home, she cut off his head, planted it with basil, and displayed it on her terrace.

“I do love The White Lotus, but it was purely coincidental,” Ottolenghi said with a laugh in a recent interview from his office in London. “I saw it a couple of months after we did the photo shoot for the vases and thought, ‘This is just incredible.’ It was really good timing.”

This is the second lifestyle collection with Serax for the Israeli-born chef behind such acclaimed London restaurants as NOPI and his eponymous delicatessens. “We’ve always concentrated on how food is presented on display, and the platters are an integral part of the vibe,” he says. It was Bisignano—whose husband, Alex Meitlis, is the architect of Ottolenghi’s restaurants and whose Tel Aviv loft was featured in ELLE DECOR in 2021—who proposed designing a line of colorful plates and platters to go with the chef’s food.

That first Serax collection was called Feast Yotam and has become a bestseller, earning an award for tableware last year from the ELLE DECO International network at its annual EDIDA awards. The new Sicily vase collection is meant to complement the tabletop pieces. “When you walk into our delis, it’s not just about food; we also have big displays of flowers,” Ottolenghi says. “So Ivo suggested doing these Moor’s head vases, inspired by his Sicilian heritage.”

In keeping with the chef’s cheerfully maximalist approach, the artist’s hand-painted ceramics bring comic relief to a macabre legend. The vase heads depict cartoonish fish, or a king whose googly eyes and crenellated crown can’t help but bring a smile to one’s face. The pieces will also be available in store at Bloomingdale’s. “I love to load a table with props, and these are so full of color,” Ottolenghi says. “It’s an easy joy to be had, and that’s definitely useful these days.”

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