Gohar World: Handmade Tableware From Two Sisters in Cairo

Laila Gohar made her name with food that looked like art: butter molded into a nose and an ear, towers of langoustines and pink roses. In 2020 she and her sister Nadia, a painter, turned that instinct into Gohar World, a tableware line designed in their New York studio and made by family-owned ateliers from Vietnam to Austria, Italy to Egypt.

The point is craft that might otherwise disappear. Mouth-blown glass, needlework, hand-dipped candles. The sisters even imagined a character to design for, an eccentric, well-traveled older woman who collects beautiful things, and you can feel her in every piece. The Mother Of All Pearls set of spoons and dishes is the one I would give as a gift. The Swan mother-of-pearl serving spoons are the ones I would keep.

The linens and small objects are where the family story gets personal. Gohar World's cottons and linens are sourced in Egypt and sewn in the Cairo atelier of Laila and Nadia's family, which makes a humble cotton-lace doily feel like something with a past. Lace, crochet, ribbon and pearl show up everywhere, and none of it takes itself too seriously. The Pear crocheted ornament is funny and lovely at once, which is basically the brand in one object.

I like that the range spills off the table, too. The Swan marbled hair comb and the Host porcelain and cord necklace are what happens when a tableware brand decides you should dress as carefully as you set the table. Buy one small ritual object and use it on an ordinary night.

Gohar World is not minimalism, and it should not be squeezed into a beige tablescape to look sensible. The whole appeal is the wink, a spoon shaped like a swan or a pear made of crochet, sitting next to real, slow craft from family ateliers. I would not try to buy a matching set. Pick the one object that will make a guest ask where it came from, and let the rest of the table stay simple around it. Think about how you actually host before buying the most delicate pieces, and then use them, on a Tuesday, for no reason at all. Objects like these are meant to be used, not saved for an occasion that never comes.