About us

studio

a cairo studio shaping stoneware for the table.

abracadabra is a small studio in fustat, building on 6,000 years of egyptian pottery tradition, since 2017. we throw, glaze, and fire every piece in-house, for chefs, hotels, stylists, and homes that notice detail.

a cairo studio shaping stoneware for the table.
building on 6,000 years, since 2017.

origin

building on 6,000 years, since 2017.

egyptian pottery is older than glass, older than the alphabet, older than most of what we call design. abracadabra was founded in 2017 to carry that craft forward without putting it behind museum glass.

we draw from the same nile valley clay bodies that have shaped tables here for millennia, and we pair them with contemporary silhouettes and glazes built for how people actually cook, serve, and host today.

founder

i create as i speak.

i spent ten years as a creative director in advertising, looking for the work that would fit. i knew i could make, but i needed a material that made sense. something with weight, something with roots.

that led me back to egypt, and to the clay bodies i grew up around. abracadabra began with the feeling you get when a plate leaves your hand and comes back weeks later, fired and finished, unmistakable. the name is a promise: i create as i speak.

this studio is built with my husband, omar marei, and with my godfather and mentor, dr. mohsen nour. our work is to keep egyptian craft alive as a living practice, not a museum piece, and to share it with chefs, hosts, and artists who build their own worlds.

yassmin nader, founder, abracadabra

i create as i speak.
fired twice. once for form. once for finish.

process

fired twice. once for form. once for finish.

every piece is hand-thrown, bisque-fired, glazed, and fired again to 1260°c in our fustat studio. nothing is outsourced, and no two are identical.

  1. 01

    throw

    nile valley clay bodies shaped on the wheel, trimmed by hand, and left to dry against egyptian air.

  2. 02

    first fire

    a bisque firing turns the clay from soft to stone. the piece becomes durable enough to glaze.

  3. 03

    glaze

    studio-mixed glazes, applied in layers. no two pieces read the same once they come out of the kiln.

  4. 04

    second fire

    fired to 1260°c. hot enough to vitrify the clay, make it food-safe, and fuse the glaze permanently.

material

clay, glaze, and the fire.

clay

three nile valley bodies

each clay body (red, cream, and sand) has its own grain, weight, and response to heat. we pick per piece.

glaze

studio-mixed finishes

layered glazes mixed in-house, ranging from smoked and scorched to softly burnt and mineral-pale.

fire

1260°c, twice

fired twice to vitrify and finish. food-safe, lead-free, and built to survive a working pass.

in person

see it in hand.

our pieces live across six showrooms in egypt, from the fustat pottery village to sharm el-sheikh. the fustat studio is where every piece is thrown and fired, and it's open to visits by appointment.

see all six locations ›
the journal

notes from the studio. first up: drawing on stoneware.

›

the studio promise

we fire every piece twice. once for form. once for finish. we sign batches, not stock. if a plate leaves the studio, it earned it.