National Chef of the Year

Making knives for the best chefs in the UK

For the last two years, we’ve had the honour of making a bespoke knife as a prize for each of the winners of The Craft Guild of Chefs National Chef of the Year and the Young National Chef of the Year.

National Chef of the Year 2019 winner Steve Groves, Head Chef at Roux at Parliament Square tasked us with the job of designing him his perfect boning knife – a challenge we were delighted to accept.

From initial sketches made during conversations with Steve, it became apparent that Steve was looking for a knife with a very pronounced upwards curve to the blade, tapering to a fine point. The handle needed to be shaped to be comfortable being held in a wide variety of grips.

Finally Steve wanted the design of the handle to replicate the design and colours of the dining room at Roux – opulent shades of dark teal, dark wood and gilt.

To ensure the design of the blade was spot on, we began by making an acrylic mockup of the knife for Steve to play with to ensure we’d captured the angle correctly. From there we then made Steve a fully functioning steel prototype to put to test in his kitchen.

Only when we were absolutely satisfied that the design was spot on did we then move on to making Steve’s finished knife.

For the handle we layered Padauk veneer sandwiched with Tabriz paper from the G . F Smith Colorplan range. Finally we added brass rivets as a nod to the gilt accents within the Rosendale-designed Roux dining room.