The world of knifemaking is a treasure trove of information, experiences, and connections.
While there are many knifemaking workshops out there that explain the how, we wanted to create a workshop that shows the why and the end result. A touch of theory, a touch of experience, a touch of understanding and how it's all linked together.
Introducing our VIP Experience Package, which creates the best version of many of our experiences and puts them into one unique package, with some exclusive special additions for a more bespoke experience.
By the end of this workshop, you will know a lot more about why Japanese knives are so good both theoretically and practically.
Learn. Sharpen. Cut. Experience.
Table of Contents
Workshop Contents
This workshop takes approximately two hours and involves four key steps.
Learn
Take a lesson about knifemaking from one of our team. Designed for newcomers to knives yet also taught to culinary school students, this lesson covers the history of knifemaking in Sakai, what carbon steel knives are, and why single-edged knives are sought after in the world of Japanese cuisine.
Sharpen
Get a deeper lesson in sharpening a kitchen knife. Learn how multiple different grits of whetstone work, experience professional technique, and get on a sharpening stone to try yourself with feedback from our sharpening experts. Suitable for all skill levels!
Cut
Cut various foods and items with knives of varying degrees of sharpness to better understand why sharpening is so important, and why Japanese cuisine chefs love single-edged kitchen knives. Enjoy some premium seafood (or something else if you want!) as a snack that you cut yourself, learning cutting techniques from our team; many are ex-chefs themselves.
Experience
Get VIP service from our team if you are looking to buy a kitchen knife, with a one-on-one consultation session for as long as you need to find the best knife for you.
This experience can be modified, depending on what you want to do more of. Want to spend more time learning? Ask for a longer lecture! Want to sharpen more? Ask to try more whetstones! This experience is designed to be flexible, so you can learn and enjoy as much as possible.
This activity is suitable for groups anywhere between five to ten people, but smaller and larger groups are also accepted. Individual appointments are also available. With adult supervision, this activity is suitable for those aged five and up.
Why We're Doing It
We are hosting this experience to do something different in the world of knifemaking tourism.
Many workshops in Japan offer immersive knifemaking experiences. And of course, knifemaking is very fun!
However, such workshops can take a long time, require reservations long in advance, may need interpreters, and can also be exhausting in conditions like hot weather. While you will have a wonderful knife at the end, you may not know why that knife is so good, or fully what it is you have made. Plus, you may have other questions!
This experience is designed to teach you a lot of both theoretical and practical knowledge, so that you understand and can connect to your knives and other kitchen tools more deeply. This experience can also be done either before or after you do a knifemaking workshop elsewhere to combine both theory and practice. We belive this experience is a great addition to a knifemaking workshop, but also very useful as an isolated experience.
A good knife if uncared for will still become blunt, or even worse rust and chip. We never want to see this happen, so we think it is important to teach knowledge over anything else.
We still want people to have lots of fun though, hence why there is tasty food to cut and hands-on experiences to do.
We feel that after this workshop, you will gain a lot of knowledge you can take into other fields or use for a lifetime, instead of just in the moment.
We also wanted to make a workshop that is suitable to people of various skill levels, whether they are brand new to the world of Japanese kitchen knives, or already have some experience and are looking to hone in on what they know.
Dates and Prices
This workshop is available under the following conditions:
On weekdays, custom reservations or walk-ins are accepted for any amount of people. Walk-ins will have a modified program (cutting cushion foam instead of food). You can make a reservation up to one day beforehand.
On weekends, custom reservations are accepted for groups of five and up. Walk-ins are not accepted. You can make a reservation up to two weeks beforehand.
The cost is ¥4,000 (tax included) per person if you are reserving, or ¥3,000 (tax included) per person for the modified walk-in program.
This cannot be purchased tax-free.
Please note, we will not host this workshop on days that ICHITOI has another special event going. We will confirm this with you at time of booking.
How to Book
You can book a session by messaging us through our contact page.
We can sometimes take on-the-day reservations or walk-ins, but this is not guaranteed.