Handmade porcelain for specialty coffee
MK STUDIO is a Copenhagen-based design and production studio founded by Magdalena Kałużna-Włodarek and Michał Kałużny-Włodarek.
We create porcelain coffee cups, sensory vessels, pour-over drippers and tableware for cafés, coffee roasteries, restaurants and people who care about how coffee and food are served.
Every MK STUDIO porcelain piece is developed and produced in our workshop in Glostrup, just outside Copenhagen.
MK STUDIO exists because of the people we have met through coffee.
Baristas, roasters, brewers, café owners and chefs have challenged us to make better cups, more reliable brewers and tableware that works in real hospitality environments. Many of our most important products began with one person asking us to solve a specific problem.
We are a commercial company, and the business must support the people working here. But making another object has never been enough for us. What keeps us interested is the collaboration: listening, testing, making mistakes, correcting them and arriving at something that did not exist before.
We do not claim that a cup can replace good coffee. Coffee quality begins with the producer, the green coffee, the roast, the water and the person brewing it. A vessel is the final part of that work. It can influence how coffee is held, seen, cooled, smelled and remembered.
We do not reinvent coffee. We design the experience around it.
It started in Poland
For Magdalena, ceramics began during a university class in Poland.
What started as one material among many gradually became the centre of her work. Porcelain offered something other materials could not: a clean, refined material with a long history and wide possibilities for shape, surface and colour.
Magdalena studied fine arts at Poznań University of Technology and domestic design at the School of Form. Her education included ceramics, sculpture, metalwork and the principles of functional product design. She is also a sculptor and an experienced linocut printmaker.
Her design approach is direct: an object should be clean, geometric and fully functional before anything else.
She notices details that are easy to overlook: a transition that is too abrupt, a proportion that feels unsettled, or a base that does not relate correctly to the body of the cup.
No MK STUDIO design enters production without her review. Michał does not always enjoy hearing her criticism after spending a long time on a form, but he says she is usually right.
A first black coffee in Copenhagen
Michał's relationship with specialty coffee began in Copenhagen in 2014, while he was completing an internship at restaurant Relæ.
He visited Coffee Collective's original café and open roastery on Jægersborggade and ordered his first black specialty coffee. The clarity and complexity of that cup changed how he understood the drink. Coffee stopped being only part of restaurant service and became a subject worth exploring in the same way as food or wine.
Before joining MK STUDIO, Michał worked professionally in kitchens in Poznań and Copenhagen. His experience included Hugo Restaurant, Bazar Poznański, Relæ, Manfreds and Bæst. He also ran Farm of Ideas for four seasons as head gardener.
Working in Christian Puglisi's restaurant group shaped the way he approaches production today: organise the work, understand the purpose of every step, reduce waste and make good results repeatable.
When Michał joined MK STUDIO full-time after the birth of the couple's second child, he entered ceramics without formal ceramic training. Many traditional processes seemed unnecessarily slow, inconsistent or difficult to repeat.
Instead of accepting them, he began rebuilding them.
Learning CAD, 3D printing, digital mould design, product photography and production planning became practical responses to workshop problems. These tools allowed the studio to test more ideas, correct forms faster and develop repeatable products without losing the character of small-scale manufacturing.
An early turning point came when Magdalena made a competition cup for Mikaela Wallgren.
The project connected the studio's ceramics work with professional brewing and showed how a vessel could be developed around a specific routine, volume and drinking experience.
In 2016, MK STUDIO designed and produced a custom competition cup for Mikaela Wallgren of Coffee Collective. She used it while representing Finland and finishing runner-up at the 2016 World Brewers Cup in Dublin. The design became our B cup, a shape that helped define MK STUDIO’s visual identity and later evolved into a wider family of cups, including new sizes and hospitality-focused forms.
Art, hospitality and engineering
Magdalena and Michał approach products differently.
Magdalena brings an understanding of sculpture, proportion, material and detail. Michał brings experience from professional hospitality, production planning, digital design and problem-solving.
They do not always agree.
A design may pass several technical tests and still be rejected because it does not feel resolved. A visually successful form may need to change because it is difficult to produce, uncomfortable to hold or unsuitable for a busy café.
That tension is an important part of the process.
MK STUDIO products sit between studio ceramics and industrial production. They are made by people, but developed with the consistency, repeatability and real-world use required by professional hospitality.
The form comes later
A new product rarely begins with a drawing. It begins with a question.
What drink will be served? Who will use the object? How will it be handled during service? How should it feel when lifted? How quickly should the drink cool? Does it need to survive hundreds of dishwasher cycles? Can a café reorder the same form several years later? What is missing from the products already available?
An idea can remain unresolved for months before it becomes a physical object.
Once the purpose is clear, we move between digital sketches, CAD models, printed prototypes and physical testing. A cup may pass through five to ten versions while we adjust apparently small details such as balance, weight, internal curve, rim and foot.
Only when the object feels right and the drinking experience makes sense do we begin preparing it for production.
- Problem
- Sketches & CAD
- Physical prototypes
- Testing
- Tooling
- Production
Creating tableware for Restaurant 108
One of MK STUDIO's first major hospitality projects was a ceramic collection for Restaurant 108 in Copenhagen.
In 2016, Magdalena developed and produced plates, bowls, cups, pitchers and other serving pieces for the restaurant. The project required more than creating individual objects. Each form had to belong to the same visual family while giving the kitchen enough variation to present very different dishes.
Working with a professional restaurant at this scale changed the direction of the studio. It showed that handmade ceramics could carry a strong artistic identity while meeting the practical demands of daily service.
Independent food coverage documented Restaurant 108’s dishes being served on Magdalena Kałużna ceramics. A 2017 USTA Magazine profile and later coverage in The New York Times also featured MK STUDIO’s work in Copenhagen hospitality.
Tableware should support the food or coffee without becoming invisible.
After COVID, several of the restaurant clients that had ordered large dinnerware collections closed or changed direction.
MK STUDIO had to adapt quickly to remain relevant.
The studio began treating specialty coffee products as a serious long-term focus rather than a side of the ceramics business. That shift brought more work with brewers, roasters and competition baristas, and it accelerated the development of repeatable cup families and pour-over equipment.
Listening is part of the design process
Many MK STUDIO products began with a conversation rather than a sketch.
We work with baristas, brewers, roasters, chefs and café owners who use these objects every day. They identify problems that are not always visible from inside a ceramic workshop: unstable brewing flow, cups that break too easily during service, forms that are uncomfortable to hold, or vessels that fail to support the intended drinking experience.
One of the most important collaborations in our history was with Elika Liftee of Onyx Coffee Lab.
Together, we developed the flat-bottom MK Dripper. Onyx Coffee Lab states that Elika used the brewer to secure his second U.S. Brewers Cup Championship and finish as runner-up at the 2022 World Brewers Cup.
Alvin Cheng has also played an important role in our development. He has worked with MK STUDIO since 2016, continually testing, questioning and challenging our products. Today, he represents MK STUDIO as our ambassador in Hong Kong.
These relationships are not conventional endorsements. They are part of the development process. Our partners tell us what works, what fails and what needs to change. We listen, test and improve.
Handmade does not have to mean inconsistent
Our workshop is located in Glostrup, just outside Copenhagen.
It was built for repeatable production rather than only one-off ceramic work. We combine hand processes with digital design, custom tooling, slip casting and pressure jiggering.
This allows us to produce repeatable hospitality collections while retaining the variation and human character that make handmade ceramics meaningful.
In a strong production week, our team can form, fire, finish and prepare approximately 500-1000 porcelain cups.
Our team consists of seven people working across the workshop, office and Copenhagen shop. Every object passes through several pairs of hands before it is packed.
Depending on the product, the work may include material preparation, forming or casting, releasing pieces from moulds, trimming, drying, bisque firing, glazing, high-temperature firing, inspection, sorting and packing.
Each task requires a different kind of skill. No single person makes an MK STUDIO cup alone.
Our current porcelain is bisque-fired at approximately 960°C and glaze-fired at approximately 1260°C. Selected ceramic transfers require a further firing at approximately 680°C. Finished pieces are food-safe, dishwasher-safe and made to comply with applicable European food-contact requirements.
From individual cups to complete hospitality collections
We produce objects for homes, but professional hospitality has shaped how we work. A cup in a busy café must do more than photograph well. It must feel balanced, withstand daily handling, work with the intended drink, fit the service routine and remain available for future reorders.
- Espresso and cortado cups
- Cappuccino and flat-white cups
- Filter coffee cups
- Sensory and tasting vessels
- Flat-bed and conical pour-over drippers
- Coffee servers
- Plates and bowls
- Custom restaurant tableware
- Coloured porcelain
- Borosilicate glassware
- Branded and custom-developed collections
Colour that runs through the porcelain
Mix Wave is the name we gave to our method of combining differently coloured porcelain casting slips inside the mould.
The pattern is not printed or painted onto the surface. The colours move through the body of the object.
Each piece is cast by hand. The movement of the slips creates natural variation, while the person casting controls the overall direction and character of the pattern.
The process is costly and difficult to standardise. Ceramic stains require substantial material investment, and only Magdalena and Melina currently produce these pieces consistently in our studio.
No two pieces are identical, but experienced casting allows us to create visually related batches for cafés, restaurants and collections.
Our work is not finished
We are developing our own porcelain body and casting slip for in-house production.
Our aim is not simply to describe it as premium. We want to understand and improve measurable properties such as strength, vitrification, casting performance and resistance to the conditions of daily hospitality.
The development programme includes work toward higher firing temperatures, with a target of approximately 1300°C, and controlled changes to the clay body.
Our ambition is to produce an exceptionally strong porcelain formulation developed and made in Denmark.
Until testing is complete, we will document this as an active research project rather than presenting unfinished results as proven facts.
We believe an object can be playful without becoming impractical.
We believe handmade production can be consistent enough for professional hospitality.
We believe small studios can use digital design and modern tooling without losing the value of handwork.
We believe mistakes should be corrected rather than hidden.
We believe the people growing, roasting, brewing and serving coffee deserve a vessel made with comparable attention.
And we believe that normal is often boring.
MK STUDIO has appeared in international coverage of Copenhagen ceramics, food and design.
| Founded | 2016 |
|---|---|
| Founders | Magdalena Kałużna-Włodarek and Michał Kałużny-Włodarek |
| Workshop | Sydvestvej 129A, 2600 Glostrup, Denmark |
| Store | Frederiksberg Allé 52, 1820 Frederiksberg, Copenhagen |
| Team | Seven people across production, administration and retail |
| Primary material | Porcelain |
| Current firing | 960°C bisque; 1260°C glaze; selected transfers at 680°C |
| Core methods | Pressure jiggering, slip casting, mould making, CAD, 3D printing, hand finishing and glazing |
| Main work | Specialty coffee cups, sensory vessels, pour-over brewers, hospitality tableware, custom projects, coloured porcelain and glassware |
| Legal entity | mk-ceramics ApS |
| CVR | 44964473 |
| Availability | Direct from MK STUDIO and through selected international resellers |
Choose from our collection, create a custom edition, or develop something new
Choose from our existing collection, create a custom colour or branded edition, or speak with us about developing something new.
We work with independent cafés, international coffee businesses, restaurants, chefs, retailers and competition brewers.
