La Oficial

In 2017, two friends - Toni Torrecillas and José Barrio - came back from a road trip through Portugal with a firm plan to open a ceramics shop. The revelation that sparked it all was a local tradition: in Portuguese village workshops, everything - plates, jugs, dishes, pots - was sold by weight. Simple, honest, no fuss.

Neither Toni nor José had ever run a business before, but that didn't stop them. Both grew up in small towns where everything around them was made by real people with actual names and faces. So they set out to create a space where artisan ceramics would get the attention they deserve, and where every piece would have a person behind it.

Today La Oficial brings together ceramics from the best Spanish workshops and independent studios, alongside work from potters in Portugal, France and Northern Europe. One of the key Spanish names is Ivan Ros from Córdoba - a master whose work is commissioned by major luxury fashion houses, and with whom La Oficial collaborates just as closely. Their joint collections, as the founders put it, go straight from the catwalk to your table.

Ceramic artist Julieta Álvarez - whose work has been exhibited at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum and the Royal Palace of Madrid - creates hand-modelled and hand-enamelled ceramic jewellery exclusively for the shop.

The beautifully painted tableware from Risueño is the work of Joaquín Risueño, a painter and sculptor whose pieces are held in leading museums in Spain and Japan.

The shop also carries work from some of Spain's finest artisan workshops - from La Navà, with a history of nearly three centuries, to contemporary projects like Centro Cerámico Talavera and Cerámica Artística San Ginés. Every name brings its own regional tradition and technique.

Some of La Oficial's collections are created in exclusive collaboration with Spanish designers and craftspeople, and you simply won't find them anywhere else. Plates, bowls, jugs, vases, trays, pots and accessories: if you're the kind of traveller who always comes home with a new ceramic trophy, La Oficial is your shop.

Find it in the Chueca neighbourhood, one of Madrid's most vibrant quarters, at Calle Pelayo, 43.