Many of our leading restaurants source bespoke plates and bowls from artisan potters – to serve their stunning meals on mass-made crockery would be akin to putting a Picasso painting in a plastic frame.
Many of those restaurants also pride themselves on their extensive – and often expensive – drinks menus and yet, says Emma Mackintosh, they don’t do enough to showcase the drinks they serve.
‘People like to eat off nice plates but I think a nice glass makes a huge difference to a drink,’ she says. ‘It lifts and enhances the experience.
‘People worry about the shape of a wine glass and sommeliers talk about the shapes of red wine glasses and white wine glasses being important without considering the actual glass. For me, a nice glass will enhance the wine whatever colour it is.
‘A lot of fine dining restaurants invest in the plates and bowls they serve their food on but don’t think twice about serving drinks in glasses that were factory-made and have no soul.’
Emma creates artisan glassware in her studio in Hawkshead, and is one of a tiny number of people in the UK to work in the way she does.
Rather than using a hot furnace and blowing glass, she uses a small torch to melt glass rods and tubes which she blows, sculpts, connects and moulds to achieve a more precise and controlled finish.
‘I am told time and time again that the glass makes a difference,’ she says.
And now, diners at one of the county’s best restaurants can see for themselves.
Aven in Preston has three AA Rosettes and was this year included in the Michelin Guide despite opening less than a year ago. The restaurant, on Camden Place near Avenham Park in the city centre, has Emma’s tumblers on the tables.
Aven’s chef director Oli Martin – who won the chef of the year award at last year’s Lancashire Life Food & Drink Awards – says: ‘Emma’s water glasses help to bring our tables to life a little bit more and they make a real difference to the diners’ experience.
‘The glass makes a real difference to the drink and the same goes for food – that's why we have bespoke plates. A good quality glass can give a different mouthfeel and change your mindset.
‘Some people just come for a nice meal but some diners want to know where everything comes from. I’d say about half the people who eat at Aven ask about the glasses and where they’re from.
‘We have started with the water glasses but we are looking at possibly having some cocktail glasses as well. They are something a little bit different – it’s not something I’ve seen elsewhere. Because I’m more focused on the food, it wasn’t something that had crossed my mind, but it makes good sense and I would like to think more restaurants will follow suit.’
And Emma says: ‘I thought for Aven tumblers would be the way forward – there's less to worry about than with wine glasses and it meant I could be quite creative. My glasses bring something new and I’ve had very positive feedback from Oli.
‘Because Oli’s cooking is very natural and rooted in nature, I created a design with the Aven leaf logo.
‘I do a lot of walking in the forests, looking at textures, leaves and the natural world and when I started making glasses, I thought it would be fabulous to put that in what I do and started to think about how to do that.’
Emma, whose grandfather was Lakes artist Derek Willink, was born in Italy and spent time in Scotland, north Wales and Devon before studying metallurgy at Oxford.
After her degree – ‘I hated it and got very frustrated with it, but I stuck at it’ – and a year travelling in South East Asia and Australia, Emma settled in Cornwall where, after her first child was born, she started to make children’s clothes.
In her early 30s she moved to Hawkshead and started evening classes in silversmithing and she adds: ‘At that time I was selling glass beads and I saw an article about making hand-made glass beads so I learned how to do it.
‘That’s when I had my goldilocks moment – fabric was too soft and not right for me. Metal was too hard and wouldn’t flow right but then I found glass and I just got it.
‘In 2009 asked my parents to buy me a little torch for Christmas. It was about £30 and it was crap but it was just enough to get me going on the kitchen table and that was enough for me to realise glass was what I really wanted to be working with. I can’t sculpt with clay, but with glass, it just comes out – I don’t understand why.
‘I bought a proper torch and started making beads and selling them, then I moved on to a better torch and decided beads were too small and I wanted to make other, bigger, things.’
She attended an intensive training course in Germany where celebrated American artist and glass blower Shane Fero was among the tutors. ‘He went round the room asking people what they wanted to be able to make and I said I wanted to make goblets. He gave me a look and said: “Oh my God”. He said it would take years to learn but he did his best and I got the basics – and I just didn’t stop.
‘I started to make vases and I went on learning and practising and by this stage I could make quite a nice wine glass.
‘In 2015 Alois Hechl, who had been making professionally for quite a while, came here for three weeks and taught me and that’s what really brought it all together – he sat me down and said ‘do it like this’. My imagination ran riot as soon as he went away but he got me started.’
Emma’s work is available in the Handmade in Hawkshead shop, through her website and via her Etsy shop, and she added: ‘I struggle to keep up with demand – I do try my hardest, but there’s just me.
‘I am one of two people I know in the UK to blow glass like I do. I’m learning all the time and pushing myself, I never stop. Glass is the most amazing thing to work with – it's totally magical.
‘I like the idea of people using the glasses I make, not for the sake of my ego, but because I want them to make people happy, and I really hope they do.’
* To see more of Emma’s work, go to nettleandtansy.co.uk.
