About Us
Hi, I’m Sean, founder of Fragrant Knives. I’m a chef and food anthropologist who was born in Hong Kong but grew up in the UK, and I have roots in both places. A couple of years ago, I moved back to Hong Kong where I live now, and where the idea to introduce Chinese-style chef’s knives to cooks around the world came to me.
This idea came gradually: in my professional kitchen experience in London I’d pretty much exclusively used Japanese or hybrid knives, but in Hong Kong I was gifted an old Chinese chef’s knife by my Grandmother. These are beautiful and long-lasting tools, found in the vast majority of home and professional kitchens across East Asia. They’re used for nearly all knife tasks, except bone-cleaving, despite their morphological similarity to a western butcher’s cleaver.
Working in a kitchen in Hong Kong, I soon found myself reaching for my Chinese knife before the more specialised Japanese knives that were technically ‘more-suited’ to the tasks at hand, because of its superior toughness, shape and adaptability. At home too this knife was all I’d use - a slicer, chopper, mincer, garlic-smasher, bench-scraper all in one. The bench-scraper stands out more than you’d think: ultimately, food doesn’t just stay on the chopping board, and a knife which helps you move it just feels like a better-suited tool to the process of cooking beyond just cutting.
Having fallen in love with using this kind of knife, I knew that I had to bring Chinese knives to the world: I’ve seen enough beautiful Japanese knives rusted, chipped or unused in knife drawers in the UK to know that a bulletproof, stainless steel Chinese-style chef’s knife is the solution. I set about producing and testing a knife that is durable enough to give to a flatmate to use, and that won’t rust at the sight of water. After months of designing and testing, and a few trips to Yangjiang to find a trusted workshop to work with, I eventually arrived at a prototype I was really proud of. This knife held true to Chinese knives I’d used in the past but even builds on them in terms of design and build quality, and is certainly easier to use by someone with no experience with them.
I took this knife to Kickstarter, and the response from the public was incredible. We were fully funded in 72 hours, raising over £11,000 in just two weeks. I spent the winter of 2024 putting finishing touches to packaging, heading back to Yangjiang to finalise designs and quality-test our knives, and packing and shipping them out to our backers around the world. It was a complete rush: it is my first project of this nature so there were plenty of problems to anticipate and fires to put out, but I came out of the experience all the more ready to take this business further. I also couldn’t have done it without help from: Tom, our technical director; Eddie, producing our beautiful artwork; and Hoi Yan, making the knives look as beautiful in photos as they do in real life.
Right now, our workshop in Yangjiang is taking some well deserved rest through Chinese New Year, and we’re planning our next moves. The very last of our stock from the first batch of knives is still available, but it will likely be Spring before we can re-stock properly. We’re taking this time to plan for our future, test out some prototypes, and spread the word about Chinese knives!
love!
– Sean