Jay Patel likes to spoil his knives. At the end of each day, his high-carbon steel Japanese blades are treated less like kitchen equipment and more like delicate skin.
“They get washed, dried and stropped on fine leather,” Patel says. “Then I exfoliate and moisturise them before laying them down in their silk beds. It might sound crazy, but I would never use the same knife the next day. I like them to have a good rest. If you look after your knife, it will look after you.”
Patel has been supplying chefs with Japanese knives since the 1990s, though it was slow going at first. He recalls being laughed at while attempting to sell his wares at The Restaurant Show. “Chefs didn’t get it. Back then, German knives like Wüsthof and J.A. Henckels were considered the best in the world - perhaps Sabatier if you were French,” he says.
Carving out a niche
Unable to persuade established chefs to part with their robust but hard-to-sharpen European blades, Patel turned to the next generation. He began teaching knife skills and sharpening at Westminster Kingsway College in central London - a move that proved pivotal. Many of those chefs are now running some of London’s best restaurants and have passed their preferences and knowledge on to their teams.
Chefs didn’t get it. Back then, German knives like Wüsthof and J.A. Henckels were considered the best in the world - perhaps Sabatier if you were French
Patel now runs 11 Japanese Knife Company (JKC) shops across London, Paris and Stockholm, with further European expansion planned alongside a significant online presence. The business supplies both chefs and consumers and imports knives and sharpening equipment from some of Japan’s most respected makers, working with blacksmiths from renowned blade-producing regions such as Sakai, Seki and Takefu.
JKC stocks hundreds of styles, from affordable workhorses to bespoke, hand-forged heirloom pieces worth thousands of pounds.
“When I started, we were the only ones,” Patel says. “Now there are lots of specialist knife shops, both physical and online - and we welcome that. Increased competition has pushed us to expand into other areas, including Japanese cooking equipment and tableware.”
Never a dull moment
A key factor behind Patel’s success is that he is more than a retailer - he is an artisan in his own right. He is one of very few non-Japanese practitioners to have trained under a master blacksmith in Japan, earning the respect of makers as someone who understands both the metallurgy and the craft.
Patel’s path into knives was not a conventional one. He began his career in fashion, selling a childrenswear business to Terence Conran in the mid-1980s. “There was a three-year non-compete clause, so I had to find something else to do,” he recalls. “I was only 34 and very interested in food, so I spent two years travelling the world, doing stages in different kitchens.”
Eventually, he ended up in Japan, working in a tiny izakaya just outside Tokyo. When he left, the chef gave him a knife - a yanagiba, a single-bevel sashimi knife designed to be sharpened on one side only. “I fell in love with it,” he says. “At the time, knives of that calibre weren’t available in the UK. It changed the way I worked. It changed everything.”
Back home, Patel struggled to find anyone capable of sharpening it properly. One attempt in particular ended badly, with a sharpener informing him that the knife was faulty because it was only sharpened on one side. “He completely ruined it. I could have stabbed him,” Patel laughs. “I decided the only thing to do was go to Japan and learn.”
Over the next decade, he travelled repeatedly between London and Japan, training under a blacksmith in Nangoku, working with a master sharpener and spending time in Tokyo’s famed Tsukiji fish market learning how to use his knives. “It was tough,” he continues. “The Japanese are very secretive about these skills. And I quickly realised this isn’t something you learn in a few months - it takes decades to master.”
The way of the Samurai
Japanese knife-making remains steeped in tradition, sometimes to an extent that can seem almost mystical. Patel cites the fact that blades forged in April and August command a premium because the colour of the moon during those months matches the ideal hue of semi-molten steel before quenching.
“They work at night, holding the blade up to the light until the metal and the moon are as one,” he says. “Try explaining that to most English people and they’ll think you’re mad.”
While such traditions – many of which date back to the days of the Samurai - persist, Patel says the boundary between artisan craft and scaled production is beginning to blur, as some blacksmiths move into larger operations. The result is that high-quality Japanese knives are now more accessible than ever.
They work at night, holding the blade up to the light until the metal and the moon are as one. Try explaining that to most English people and they’ll think you’re mad
Thanks in no small part to Patel - alongside brands such as Global and Kai Shun, which helped bring Japanese knives into the mainstream in the early 2000s - these blades have become standard in high-level UK kitchens. Walk into a Michelin-starred restaurant today and the chances are you will see chefs working with slender, often beautifully finished Japanese knives.
Why Japanese?
Yet their appeal goes beyond aesthetics. The fundamental difference lies in construction. Western knives are typically made from a single piece of steel, whereas high-end Japanese knives use layered construction: a hard core steel sandwiched between softer outer layers, which allows for a very hard, very thin edge, while still being relatively easy to sharpen, Patel explains. Layered construction means Japanese knives can be ground at a finer angle - often around 15 degrees, compared with around 20 degrees for Western blades - allowing for an edge that can be surgically sharp if required.
“The sharper the knife, the less damage you do to the food. You don’t tear the cells apart,” he says. “I can cut an onion and hold the slices right up to my eye without crying. The juices stay in the food because the blade is so thin - it doesn’t disrupt the structure as much. This makes Japanese knives more suited to the precise work required in top kitchens.”
I can cut an onion and hold the slices right up to my eye without crying. The juices stay in the food because the blade is so thin - it doesn’t disrupt the structure as much
The trade-off is durability. Japanese knives are generally more brittle and require careful handling.
“They’re not designed for cutting through bone and can chip if misused,” Patel explains adding that there are specialist knives for those tasks, like the deba, a burly triangular knife that resembles a Western chef’s knife. “Modern, cold-forged Japanese blades are becoming much tougher,” he adds. “We now stock ranges of knives that can stand up to pretty much anything.”
Thirty years on, the knives chefs once dismissed have become the defining tool of the modern professional kitchen - a shift driven in no small part by Patel’s belief in his craft.