If you want to indulge your inner culinary geek, you can do worse than lose a morning in Kitchen Provisions. Tucked away down a quiet street in Soho, the shop is dedicated largely to Japanese utensils and cookware — and let’s face it, no nation takes food obsession quite as far as the Japanese. You can browse specialist pastry brushes made with goat or horse hair, agar jelly cutters to extrude the perfect tokoroten noodles or kelp-infused paper that enhances the taste and texture of fish when you wrap or age it.
But at the core of the shop, of course, are Japanese knives, the largest array you will find in the country — from £4,000 Yanagiba for slicing sushi to £100 nakiri cleavers for cutting vegetables and every shape and price in between. “I fell down the rabbit hole about 12 years ago,” Tom Saunders, the owner, says. He has four shops across London and claims to be the biggest importer in Europe, catering for chefs and, increasingly, moneyed amateurs. “A lot of people are into collecting knives and doing some very specialised cooking at home.”
He suggests, for example, that the expensive sushi knife, made from 320mm of ornate Aogami steel and resembling a samurai sword more than a kitchen blade, will end up “in a display cabinet on a boat in Monaco, used once a year to slice a beef Wellington”.
“We don’t deal in needs, we deal in wants,” he adds.
It is a mesmerising and bewildering display and, for the uninitiated, a daunting thing to be confronted with. “I want a knife, er, for using in the kitchen” is a request that is not going to cut it.
Advertisement
It’s for this reason that Saunders has introduced a knife concierge service. For £100, redeemable against a purchase, he will close the door for an hour and give you his undivided attention. You tell him what you think you want, get some knives in your hand and practise your chopping, and he will steer you to what you realise you actually want. “It’s a sales experience but it is about buying the right knife for you,” he says. “I don’t want you to overspend or buy stupid stuff. I want you to become a repeat customer.”
The level of geekery can be dialled up as much as you want — chat away about carbon and chromium content in the steel, Rockwell scales of hardness, grinding angles etc — but for most it comes down to finding an attractive knife that’s comfortable to use and easy to look after.
There are three basics to tick off: shape, steel and finish. There is a knife for every conceivable task (that Japanese specialisation again), but the one you will use the most is the gyuto or santoku, which equates to the all-purpose chef’s knife in European parlance. The santoku is generally shorter with a deeper blade but they will do pretty much the same job. Saunders suggests that this is the first knife to buy, to be followed by a smaller petty knife for smaller tasks and then perhaps a paring knife, bread knife and cleaver.
Next there is the amount of carbon in the blade. The higher the content the sharper it will stay, but it will also be more brittle and prone to rust. High carbon is the connoisseur’s choice — “but only if you are the kind of person who polishes their shoes regularly. You need to be the kind of person who looks after things.” Less demanding will be a knife made with stainless steel.
Then there are five blade finishes: kurouchi(where the blackened steel from the forging process is left on); nashiji(a textured satin finish); tsuchime (where it is hammered to create ornate indentations); Damascus (a rippled, laminated finish, like oil on water); and migaki (plain polished for an understated look).
Advertisement
Handles can either be western style with metal bolsters or Japanese wa handles, typically made of rounded or hexagonal wood and burnt on to the knife. They can come in all kinds of woods and finishes, but Saunders says you shouldn’t worry too much about that as for about £50 pounds he can put whichever one you want on the blade to make a bespoke knife. (You can also have it engraved with Japanese script or drawings for about £20.)
Beyond those basics, you can climb as far as you want up the price scale, dictated mainly by the maker, who can attain near mythical status. Access to knives is all about personal relationships, and Saunders makes regular visits to the blacksmiths in Japan and offers knives from dozens of different creators. “You mainly get what you pay for,” he says, reaching for a £1,000 santoku made by Tsukasa Hinoura. “This guy is the god in knife making. I’ve got a knife by him the value of a second-hand car and I could sell it just like that. He also only makes what he wants. He’ll let me order as many gyutos as I want, and he won’t send me any. Or he’ll just send me a nakiri instead.”
Hinoura is about to retire, so Saunders’s tip is to look out for knives made by his son, Mutsumi Hinoura, which start at a much more affordable £170. “There’s huge lineage in knife making. These are forged in the same family garage, so you get a bit of his dad for a much lower price.” Saunders is also a big fan of Yoshimi Kato, whom he describes as a 40-year-old with the skills of a much older man — “it’s a world dominated by age and experience, and what this guy does is just unbelievable” — and Yu Kurosaki. “If you are a cool young guy from Japan, into baseball and all that, you own a Kurosaki knife. No question.”
Kitchen Provisions is at 12 Ingestre Place, London W1 (kitchenprovisions.co.uk). The knife concierge service costs £100, redeemable against any purchase on the day
