Fragrant Knives is bringing Chinese chef’s knives to the world. We’re based in the UK, with roots in Hong Kong. Our knives are made in Yangjiang, the knife capital of China. 

Origins 

Fragrant Knives was born in 2024 from my own experience in fine dining kitchens in Hong Kong. I was given a Chinese chef’s knife by my grandmother, and I quickly noticed how easily it replaced every other knife in my roll. Both at work and at home, I found myself using my high-end Japanese chef’s knives less and less. The constant care they needed and their specificity for individual tasks just made them more effort to use than that single, multifunctional Chinese chef’s knife.

As both a chef and a food anthropologist, I’ve always paid close attention to how people cook and the tools they use. I began to see that the way we cook in the West today is actually better suited to Chinese chef’s knives than to the knives marketed to modern foodies. In a world where we’re increasingly pressed for time, cooking in small, often shared kitchens, an expensive knife that can easily chip or rust feels out of place.

Chinese chef’s knives, made of tough stainless steel and built to last, are far better suited to the home cook. Instead of needing several specialized tools—each demanding care and storage space—you can have just one knife that acts as your slicer, chopper, garlic-smasher, and bench-scraper.

Looking around at the Chinese chef’s knives on the market, I found that very few of them compared to the build quality and design of the knife I had been handed down by my grandmother. Taking it as a starting point, I sketched out a design more suited to homecooks, inspired by the design culture of Hong Kong. 

I went to Yangjiang, the knife capital of China, and found a small workshop run by a third-generation knife maker that made the design a reality. I named the project after Hong Kong, the city that inspired the knives in the first place, Hong Kong translating as ‘fragrant harbour’. Fragrant Knives was born.

Kickstarter 

With just a prototype in hand, we spent months testing and tweaking prototypes at home and in restaurant kitchens. Eventually, with help from a couple of close friends, we’d arrived at a knife we were proud to put into the hands of friends, family and colleagues. We took the knives to kickstarter, and the response was incredible. 

We were fully funded in just 48 hours, and were funded to the tune of over £11,000 in 14 days, without any ads or marketing. The response and excitement was just incredible, and I took quickly to get the knives made. 

I spent the next weeks experimenting with packaging samples, figuring out international shipping and duty regulations, and waiting for the call from the workshop. Finally, the call came, and I went to the workshop in Yangjiang to check and pack every one of the 200 knives that we’d made. 

At this point, I’d been on five separate trips to Yangjiang, and knew the city well. It was through this experience that made me sure that I wanted Fragrant Knives to say ‘made in China’ proudly. The more time I spent watching the craftsman at work, the more struck I was with how often I saw dismissals of Chinese craftsmanship in the West, and how thoughtless they often are. 

We shipped out to our backers in just six weeks, and the feedback we received was incredible. People who’d never used a Chinese chef’s knife before loved the ease at which it switched between tasks, particularly bench scraping. People who had experience loved its edge retention and weight. Everyone loved its sharpness and the handle design. 

We knew we had something truly special, and that we were just getting started. 

The future 

Going from a successful kickstarter campaign to a sustainable brand is not easy. But now we get the chance to build our brand the way we want, and go all in on the products that we’re making. We took the opportunity to start building our brand with the long-term in mind: redesigning the packaging, tweaking the knife design, developing relationships with incredible creatives and makers both in Hong Kong and the UK. 

Our next batch of Chinese chef’s knives are available from September 9th. Join us for the journey.

About Me

I'm a chef and food anthropologist, and the founder of Fragrant Knives. Born in Hong Kong and raised in the UK, my path into food began after I lost my mother while at university. Cooking became a vital way for me to connect with my Chinese heritage. After working in a London noodle shop, I trained at Mei Mei in Borough Market under Irene Hua and Elizabeth Haigh, cooking Singaporean food in a Western kitchen. The multicultural history behind Singapore’s cuisine deepened my interest in how food reflects culture and identity. This idea shaped my postgraduate work at SOAS and my later cooking in Hong Kong, including at Vivant under Jeston Hua.

Fragrant Knives grew directly out of this intersection of cooking and anthropology. It became clear to me that while many Western home cooks reach for delicate, high-end knives, Chinese kitchens have long relied on a single, all-purpose tool. I created Fragrant Knives to champion that simplicity, and to share a knife built not for show, but for the way people really cook.