About this project
Misen: Cook Sharp
$1,083,344
One Knife to Upgrade your Entire Kitchen
Quality kitchen tools are vital for a better cooking experience. They allow you to be more creative & versatile in the kitchen, help produce better quality food, and if well-made should last a lifetime.
A good Chef’s Knife is the single most important tool in any kitchen. From mincing garlic to breaking down meats, it’s the workhorse behind virtually every great dish. There's an almost indescribable joy to effortlessly slicing through foods with a razor-sharp blade.
But between confusing, unexplained features and needlessly expensive price tags, finding the perfect blade can be difficult. That didn’t seem right to us, so we spent the last 18 months making something better.
An amazing knife at an honest price.
What Makes a Great Knife?
Great knives do two things very well: feel good in your hand and hold a sharp edge. But behind these deceptively simple concepts are centuries of tradition, technology, design and craft.
We went through dozens of prototypes to create a handle that not only provides comfort for every hand, but also encourages a proper grip for better control. To ensure true sharpness, we experimented with various blade shapes and high-carbon steels until we found the right match.
An Honest Price
Most knives cost so much because of traditional retail markups. You’d be shocked to know how little many well-known “premium” knives actually cost to make.
By partnering closely with our factories and selling directly to you online, we’re able to offer an incredible knife at wholesale pricing. Better materials, lower price. Save your cabbage for the cutting board!
Our Knife
How We Got Here
Hundreds of sketches. Dozens of prototypes. Countless tomatoes, onions and carrots cut (but none wasted!). The last 18 months have been spent building, testing, learning and improving.
Where We Are
We have a knife design that has been heavily tested and refined at every step along the way. We have partnered with craftspeople, factories and raw material suppliers across the world and built a strong supply chain network. We are ready to go!
What We Need
We need your help to raise $25,000 in order to fund the first production run of the Misen Chef's Knife. More specifically, this money will go towards the initial custom molding, raw materials and skilled labor required to make our knives.
Timeline
Note on the above timeline:
When we launched this campaign, our original timeline had production ending February, and delivery slated for March 2016. Due to the increased volume of knives that now need to be made, we updated our timeline as consistent with Update #3 that was sent to backers (please read the full update for more information).
We thought it prudent to add a buffer of one to two months (April - May) to account for the unknown. Why? Because we'd rather ship a great knife slightly later than an average knife on time. Thank you so much in advance for your understanding.
Who We Are
We're a team of passionate cooks, designers and operators that love great food and well-made objects. We have extensive experience bringing products to market and operating companies both large and small.
Risks and challenges
The biggest risk to our project is timing.
We have our supply chain partners ready and able to help us manufacture our knives, but unforeseen bumps can happen along the way. If and when issues arise, we'll communicate them as timely and openly as possible so you never feel left in the dark!
Learn about accountability on KickstarterFAQ
-
A sharp knife = safer + more fun to use. While your Misen knife will arrive sharp, with continued use over time it will go dull, as all knives do.
We realize not everyone wants to take the time to learn how to sharpen their knives at home, so we plan on offering free lifetime sharpening.
In terms of the actual logistics, as of right now (more below) while the knife sharpening itself is free, shipping to/from us is not. Here’s the process:
- You ship your knife to us
- We sharpen your knife. This process should take 5 - 10 work days (at most)
- We ship your knife back to you. There will be a return shipping feeThis is what, at minimum, we know we can offer right now.
However, given the incredible/unexpected/humbling success of the campaign so far, a few more options have become available. We *think* free return-shipping is an option that may be possible, and are working on it, but can’t commit to it just yet. We also have a few ideas in mind to improve the convenience and speed of the overall process.
-
Yes!
While we will be offering a free knife sharpening service, many of you have asked about the best way to sharpen your Misen Chef’s Knife at home. There are a few methods, but for the majority of people there are essentially two options we’d recommend; electric pull-through sharpeners and sharpening stones.
Electric pull-through sharpeners have the advantage of being very easy to use and don’t require much know-how. Downside? They remove a decent amount of material off your blade which can impact the balance & feel, and the nice ones can be a bit pricey. If you decide to go this route, be sure to choose one that can sharpen to more acute angles than the traditional 20-25 degrees. We’ve had some decent results with this model > http://www.amazon.com/Choice-Trizor-EdgeSelect-Electric-Sharpener/dp/B0018RSEMU
If you’re willing to put in a bit of work though, we HIGHLY suggest learning how to use sharpening stones. Yes, this takes some effort to learn how to do properly, but you’ll get much better results. Trust us, the payoff is worth it. For some more information, check out these two great resources:
http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/04/knife-skills-how-to-sharpen-a-knife.html
https://www.chefsteps.com/classes/knife-sharpening/landing#/
-
The Misen Chef’s Knife is made from Japanese AUS-8 stainless steel.
The blade is approximately ~8.2" long -
Aside from the quality of the materials we use, it’s incredibly important for us as a company to have a responsible supply chain process. Throughout the last 18 months, we either met with or visited over 70 manufacturers across three continents, and conducted 12 separate factory visits prior to determining who to partner with.
While two of the knife makers we met with stood out from the pack in terms of quality of work, one in particular also demonstrated exceptional consistency. From the very first prototype we made with our eventual partner to the last, the quality of their work was nothing short of excellent.
Our knives will be produced by an incredibly talented manufacturer located a few hours outside of Guangzhou, China. We spent nearly a week there earlier this year and conducted a thorough audit. While we had already intended to have strong “boots on ground” during the manufacturing process to ensure the quality & consistency of our knives, due to the success of the campaign we know we will need to increase this presence.
-
We recommend hand washing your Misen Chef's Knife with soap, hot water and a sponge (nothing too abrasive), and drying immediately.
Do NOT use a dishwasher! The powerful water jets can knock objects around, damaging the knife's edge. Further, the intense heat can cause serious harm to the knife handle.
-
While your Misen Chef’s Knife won’t arrive until next year, it’s never too early to start improving your cutting technique. Check out some tips from these sites:
- http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/05/knife-skills-how-to-hold-a-knife.html > note the "blade grip" is also commonly referred to as the "pinch grip," and we cannot emphasize how important "the claw" is. Knuckles out!
- https://www.youtube.com/watch… > More pinching & clawing
- http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/05/draftknife-skills-the-three-basic-knife-cuts.html
- https://www.youtube.com/watch… > Jacques was always my mom's favorite on-air personality, so this one's for you mom :) Can't say we agree with everything he advocates, but excellent demonstration of "the claw"
Support this project
Funding period
- (30 days)