Duralex Lys Glass Dessert Plate

Duralex have made tempered glassware at their factory at La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin, outside Orléans, since 1945, and the Lys is the plainest of their tableware ranges. Duralex named it after the Lys, the river that runs out of northern France and into Belgium. This is the 190mm plate, the dessert and side size.

The glass is tempered, which is the process the company was founded on. Each plate is heated to around 700°C and then cooled rapidly by ventilation, setting controlled stresses through the whole body of the piece. It comes out at least two and a half times more resistant to mechanical stress than ordinary annealed glass and able to take a thermal shock of at least 130°C, which is why the same plates turn up in professional kitchens and school canteens as well as at home.

The form is deliberately unfussy: a shallow rim, a flat well and a profile only 18mm deep. Clear glass shows food as it is, so it suits a tart or a salad as readily as it suits a side plate under a bowl. The plates stack flat and low, and being glass they take no colour or odour from what has been served on them. We stock the Lys because it is the useful plate in the range, the one that ends up doing dessert, bread and everything in between.

Soda-lime glass, made from sand, soda ash and limestone, lead-free, cadmium-free and fully recyclable. Manufactured within the EU, where labour law sets minimum standards for pay, working conditions, and holiday entitlement. The factory became a SCOP, a French worker-owned cooperative, in July 2024.

Caring for Duralex Glass Plates

The plates are dishwasher, microwave and freezer safe, and everyday washing does them no harm. When stacking, make sure the surfaces are clean and dry first, since a grain of grit caught between two plates will grind a scratch into both as they are lifted apart. Serve directly from the oven onto a plate at room temperature and not the other way round, because tempered glass tolerates a sudden change of temperature well but is not immune to it. Chips at the edge compromise the tempering, so a damaged plate is best taken out of use.

Material: tempered soda-lime glass
Diameter: 190mm
Height: 18mm
Dishwasher, microwave and freezer safe
Made in: France