Pity, then, the weary chef who's stuck serving his creations, over and over again, on the same big white plates he's had for years.

Happily for chefs and diners all over the area, more and more restaurants are turning the tables on convention, creating their own fashion statements with dinnerware as distinctive as the food. They've even learned the value of accessorizing.

Now your meal may be served in a ceramic tagine from Tangiers, a copper cataplana from Portugal or a wooden box from Japan. Your plate may be made in Murano, New York or an artist's studio in West Seattle.

At Sapphire on Queen Anne Hill, pottery from Tunisia is the medium of choice. It was selected for a lot of the same reasons other owners mention: It suited the restaurant's mood, held up to the clack and clatter of heavy use, and was the right price. It also was different.

So many restaurants are competing for customers these days, says Sapphire co-owner Courtney Clarke, that they're looking for a way to set themselves apart. In their case, the three partners wanted something "that would be interesting without being frightening or unapproachable." It also had to be consistent with a bright red and blue room. A plain white plate wasn't going to cut it.

The partners found the Tunisian pottery in a local gallery. Covered with painted fruit, flowers and geometric patterns in bold jewel tones, the pieces "resonate with the vibe we've got going here," says Clarke - part homey, part artsy, part hip, and all inviting.

Inviting is the word at Andaluca, too, in the Mayflower Park Hotel. There, sharing is encouraged - and some of the plates are so cool they're square. Like the food, the mood is Mediterranean, a sensuous blend of sleek and intense, with polished wood, gleaming brass and black tile with colored inlays.

Akiko's Pottery from Dahlia Lounge.

At table, shareables are served on small ceramic squares in a softly shining off-white glaze. The intensity comes with bold bread-and-butter plates in flamenco-dancer colors of crimson, gold, sapphire and green. Their surface is not flat but undulating, as if melting under a hot Riviera sun. Discovered when New York designer Izabel Lam stayed at the hotel and showed the staff a catalog of her work, the plates exactly capture the sultry, spicy mood. A larger version in the crimson color now shows off some of the entrees.

At the new Waterfront restaurant on Pier 70, partner Paul Mackay wanted some color to pick up the light and the feel of a dockside setting. He, too, chose the bread-and-butter plates to set the tone. Made in Murano, Italy, and cast in sea tones of blue-violet and lime-green, the translucent glass glitters by day, shimmers at night - acting almost like a prism for whatever light is around. A special order from longtime restaurant supplier Bargreen-Ellingson, the plates help give "a whimsical feel to an elegant restaurant," says Mackay.

That's also the aim at Cascadia in Belltown, where chef Kerry Sear serves French fries in silver bud vases and soup in cans sporting his own label.

People come to a nice restaurant looking for a bit of entertainment, he says, and they expect to experience things they wouldn't have at home. Sear walks the fine line between inventive and merely theatrical by combining the fanciful and the beautiful. Ashtrays are seafoam-green onyx; salt cellars are miniature egg shapes in silver. In keeping with the restaurant's Northwest theme of woods and water, butter comes on silver leaves, appetizers and pastries on metal ones. A sampler of eight oysters rests in a sky-blue resin tray filled with river pebbles. Alongside, a chem-lab-style metal stand is stocked with "test tubes" of different vinegars.

Tea cup from Saito's.

The resin trays are part of a collection of items commissioned from Vancouver, B.C., artist Martha Sturdy. She used the same material for bud vases and other decorative touches that appear around the room. Some of the items were cast in four colors so they could change with the seasons. (In winter, for instance, they're white with gold.) Not only is the resin good-looking, it's very durable - no small factor where things are constantly being dropped, knocked, slid and stacked in the daily course of events.

That was definitely a consideration for Yutaka Saito as he pulled together Saito's Japanese Cafe & Bar on Second Avenue in Seattle. Lacking piles of start-up cash, he needed things that would hold up - or at least not cost a fortune to replace. It took several trips and four months of scouring in his homeland (sometimes even dipping into the dollar stores) to come up with the goods: a charmingly motley collection of lacquer boxes, porcelain and glass to serve everything from sashimi to soba. Friends and colleagues chipped in to fill the gaps.

A selection of sushi might come on a rectangular platter glazed in green, or maybe on a frosted-glass tray etched with leaves. Pretty little yellow-lacquered boxes hold four small cups for finger foods and sauces. Pear-shaped, clear-glass pitchers are designed so sake can be poured into a center pocket and surrounded with ice. (There's an extensive list of sakes to choose from.) Hands-down winners of the kitsch award are the mugs painted all over with little pictures of the sushi choices - a practical alternative to the tent cards scattered through most places. They may be borderline tacky, but they're so popular with customers that Saito has to keep sending for more.

Ditto at the five outlets of Pallino, where pasta and panini are served with old-country style and high-tech speed. Owner Harry Roberts, a veteran of Starbucks, had the luxury of retirement to think out every detail, from the gonzo gizmos that cook noodles in moments to the slender, frosted-plastic tableware. Roberts came up with the fork and spoon first, designing something that would work perfectly for twirling pasta, look a lot snazzier than "that cheap metal flatware" and hold up better than the usual plastic stuff. He came up with a knife, too, then added a little coffee spoon.

The pieces are immensely popular (he sold almost 80,000 to customers last year), but controversial among those who just can't get past the plastic. "People either love it or hate it," Roberts says. No such hullabaloo over the wine glasses, however. A little white line marks the halfway point on the glasses. Above the line, the word "ottimista" is inscribed; below it, "pessimista." The glasses are so hot that nearby Restoration Hardware started selling them, too.

At Dahlia Lounge, where the famously eclectic menu features flavors from Asia to the Mediterranean to the good-ol-boy South, owner Tom Douglas needed plates and serving pieces that could speak several languages. He found his answer at Akiko's Pottery in West Seattle.

A painted plate by Rosie Collins, from The Painted Table. Sells for $80.

These dishes are hand-crafted, expensive artwork - not the kind of thing you'd typically bang around in a big kitchen. The only way Douglas could afford to use them was to promise a lot of volume in trade for a good price. What he gets is an array of pieces in various shapes, colors and textures that can do a variety of duties. One piece, a primitive clay rectangle with a muted-turquoise glaze, is used to display everything from pot stickers to Douglas' fabulous coconut-cream pie.

When it comes to dishes as artwork, it's hard to surpass the hand-done charger plates at The Painted Table in downtown Seattle's Alexis Hotel. They've been a signature feature at the restaurant for nearly seven years. With abstract designs by Mark Hariguchi and floral and fruit patterns by Rosie Collins and Annie Hauck, each plate is unique. The idea is to create a setting every bit as special as the "art" from chef Tim Kelley's kitchen, says general manager Jan Lovejoy. Diners obviously agree, since the restaurant sells a steady supply of the chargers as souvenirs of anniversaries and other memorable occasions. (Most small plates are $50; larger ones, $75.)

With all this intriguing stuff and more, there's no reason to be bored anymore.