Felice Macchi, an Italian insurance agent, celebrated his 73rd birthday in style at La Bettola Del Gusto, a seafood-focused restaurant in Pompeii, Italy. He indulged in the house specialty, spaghettoni in a fermented anchovy sauce with black truffles and butter made from Mediterranean water buffalo milk. The dish was served on a whimsically hand-painted ceramic plate depicting the spaghettoni and a smoking volcano, a nod to nearby Mount Vesuvius.
But Mr. Macchi didn’t just enjoy his meal – he added the plate to his extensive collection of Buon Ricordo plates, a type of Italian tableware introduced as a marketing tool for the Buon Ricordo Union, an association of regional Italian restaurants. Since 2022, Mr. Macchi has been the president of the Buon Ricordo Plate Collectors Association, which has about 400 members in Europe and South America.
The Buon Ricordo plates feature unique designs that highlight each restaurant’s signature dish, often featuring playful motifs like swordfish, rabbits, snails, cows, or squid. When patrons order the house specialty at a Buon Ricordo Union restaurant, the dish is served on one of these special plates, which they can take home as a keepsake.
The popularity of Buon Ricordo plates has extended beyond Italy, with high-end décor stores like ABC Carpet & Home in New York carrying a selection of them. Suki LaBarre, the vice president of merchandising and e-commerce at ABC, noted the plates’ playful aesthetic and historical significance as reasons for their appeal.
In January, Terre, an Italian restaurant in Brooklyn, became the first and only member of the Buon Ricordo Union in the United States. The restaurant’s signature dish, pappardelle pasta with wild boar ragù, is served on Buon Ricordo plates featuring a design with the Italian and American flags and a gray boar standing in a coil of yellow pasta.
Whether used for dining or decoration, Buon Ricordo plates continue to evoke a sense of nostalgia and joy for collectors like Felice Macchi, who see them as more than just tableware – they are a symbol of Italy’s rich culinary tradition and a reminder of good memories shared around the dining table.
