The two Bochs and Disney

These are two companies that trace their roots to different branches of the Boch family, which has long been tied to pottery and porcelain.

After the Napoleonic Wars, a state encompassing the current Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg was formed. The Boch family was located in Luxembourg. But with the Belgian Revolution of 1830, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg was split from Belgium. Because of differing customs unions, the Boch family risked losing access to the Belgian market. So a son of the family set up shop in Belgium. The Belgian branch eventually grew into Royal Boch, whereas the Luxembourg branch eventually joined forces with the Villeroy family to form Villeroy & Boch.

The remainder of this page will cover Villeroy & Boch, while the next page features Royal Boch.

Villeroy & Boch

Villeroy & Boch made plates for Euro Disneyland, and still makes some plates for Disneyland Paris today. Their own recent press releases note that individual designs on classic collections such as EASY or CORPO, the WILD ROSE and IVORY classics from Villeroy & Boch are also adding a decorative note to the tables in the restaurants of Disneyland Paris.

Food & Beverage Division — Grand Opening

This plate commemorating the grand opening of Euro Disneyland shows four different designs that we'll see later on.

A plate which has four distinct designs along the border — Commemorative plate

We follow these four designs clock-wise, starting from the top. After that, remaining designs will be shown.

Walt's

These plates are used in Walt's, a restaurant in Main Street. Possibly elsewhere too in the past.

A large platter — The design stays constant even at larger sizes

The rejected design, where the area behind Waiter Mickey is filled in, was seen in an eBay auction. The seller notes:

I worked for EuroDisney from 1992-1994 as a chef in the restaurants in the park.

Pre opening, representatives from Villeroy and Boch had been in and taken the Mickey Mouse design to the executive chefs for choices of final design.

[…]

We opened on 12/4/92 and I was working on starters.

This plate was on my station and looked different as I’d been working there a few weeks, plating daily—I set it aside until the end of the shift to ask the head chef.

He told me that it was the design they didn’t chose, and to pop in the trash as it should never have ended up in the kitchen. I asked if I could take it home and he gave me a slip to show security on the way out.¹

For a New Year's Eve dinner in 1996, a special commemorative plate was made, listing the menu of that dinner.²