Latest features Jay Patel: The sharpest knife in the drawer

Date Published:

31/03/2009

Chefs at Heston Blumenthal's The Fat Duck and 40-50 per cent of all UK Michelin-starred chefs buy their knives from just one Englishman who spent eight years in Japan learning the trade

Craig Butcher went to meet Jay Patel of the Japanese Knife Company to discover why his seem to be the sharpest knives in the drawer.

Knives are not a typical vocation – how did you get involved with them?

I took a couple of years off in the 1980s to travel around the world learning how to cook and ended up in Japan in 1988. When I left, one of the chefs I'd been working for, just outside of Tokyo in a place called Shin Matsudo, gave me a knife. When I got back to London I wanted to find a knife that was of similar quality and that kept its edge. But when I started looking for one, I'd go into a shop and see a knife, they all looked more or less the same but one would be £30 and another £60 and the only explanation offered would be that one is better quality - but no-one could tell me why.

I thought there had to be a market here. So I went back to Japan and through some contacts I got an apprenticeship with a nokaji or 'master blacksmith', Takeo Murata - a man of immense talent. He is what they call in Japan a 'living treasure'. As such they are allowed to take on apprentices to teach them whatever they specialise in, in his case the art of knife making.

What makes Japanese knives so special?

In the West, an apprenticeship is 3 to 4 years. In Japan, to get to the level where an apprentice can put his name to a knife which can be sold is normally between 15 and 18 years. Most good nokaji don’t really come into their own until their mid-60s. Most of those we work with now are in their 70s and 80s. One, called Hokiyama, is 102 and still making knives. He said, 'I will stop making knives when I stop learning something new and I haven't stopped learning in the 90 years I've been making knives'. They're perfectionists.

How does an apprentice learn the ropes?

The first six to nine months you're carrying water, after that you're allowed to cut the coal to the right size for the forges – that takes three to four months. Making the handle takes a year to a year and a half. Making the rivot takes another six months to learn. Making the bolsters takes another year. Actually forging and tempering the blade is almost four years long. My original plan was to do six months, a year maybe to learn about knives. I ended up spending seven years with Mr Murata. The process is very long and very arduous. After that I spent two years learning how to sharpen them in Kyoto with a gentleman called Terakuba who runs probably one of the most famous knife shops in the world, called Aritsugu. After nine years, I was happy to learn how to use them and spent just over nine months at Tsijiki Fish Market in Tokyo – the largest fish market in the world. I then came back and set up a small business here in 1998 selling knives to people who had a passion for them.

Which chefs have bought from you?

My first customer was a chef called Alastair Little [of his eponymous restaurant in Soho]. As far as Michelin-starred chefs go, I would say 40-50 per cent use knives from us. Certainly if I look at the restaurant list, everybody from The Fat Duck, Nobu, Le Gavroche, The Capital, Roka, to Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons and L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon. You name it, they use us. But our biggest audience aren’t head chefs – they’re those that do the actual cooking: commis chefs, sous-chefs.

Why do they all come to you?

It's because all the other people in the UK selling knives are salespeople. They sell great brands, but those selling them are salespeople. Not one has actually worked in a forge, so they have no understanding of the tools. But I’m not buying a knife for the brand, I’m buying it because it cuts well, because it's easy to sharpen and that appeals to a chef. They’re interested in something that works. More importantly, when something doesn’t work, they want to know there’s someone who can take care of it for them. That passion for knives that we have appeals to like minds.

What is the strangest request you've had – throwing knives, perhaps?

The most amusing request was a gentleman (whose name I don't know) whose office phoned up wanting to buy three knives made by Kobayashi, a blacksmith in Japan who makes knives for the Emperor's kitchen. But the blacksmith refused to sell his knives to a foreigner. The businessman was building his third super-yacht at a cost of $200 million and wanted the knives for his personal galley and there was no way he could get them. He got the American consulate involved, had all the money in the world and wouldn’t back down. The blacksmith is the best in the world, he won’t do anything he doesn’t want to do, and he won’t back down.

The businessman discovered that my master, Murata, was a student of Kobayashi and they also discovered I had a connection with Murata. They got in touch, so I contacted Murata, who contacted Kobayashi, and after 18 months of negotiations he agreed. The man paid close to a six-figure sum for these three blades that he probably doesn’t even use. I’ve never sold a knife again like that and I don’t think I ever will.

What’s the worst knife injury you’ve suffered?

I don’t think I’ve ever suffered really badly – daily nicks and cuts maybe. But the worst injury in my experience was my master, Murata, who in 2008 got his hand caught under the forge hammer and crushed his left hand. He’s unfortunately at an age (his eighties) where the healing process takes a long time. You often hear of blacksmiths getting injured – it’s far more dangerous making knives than using them.

Who’s the sharpest knife in the drawer – Gordon or Heston?

I personally have a passion for Heston Blumenthal’s food. I think if I could eat food prepared by Gordon Ramsay himself, it may be different. But I can’t see how many people will experience that anymore.

Slice like the chefs. Read Jay Patel's guide to knife buying

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