From chef to knife maker
Galen Garretson presides over the only place that makes knives from scratch in San Francisco. It’s a tiny, cupboard-like room at the back of his shop, Town Cutler, on Nob Hill. Here, he takes bars of steel and cuts them into the basic shape with a table saw, then uses a belt grinder to sand a beveled edge and shape the wooden handle. The whole process takes about 10 hours. But in the end, he has a blade that stacks up against the other professional chef ’s-quality knives that he sells. Garretson should know: He was in the kitchen himself for 10 years, most recently at Quince, before opening Town Cutler in 2011.
“These knives are designed for comfort — they’re very balanced and thin, of high-quality steel,” he says of the handsome blades, polished to a mirror finish, with handles of spalted birch and other exotic woods. “I’m trying to create a brand that comes from experience and feedback from other chefs.”
Lined up on the wall is a restaurant’s dream armory: In addition to the in-house brand, there are Zanmai knives (“real workhorses,” says Garretson) and handforged Takeda knives (“great for precision work”), as well as Aaron Wilburn’s line of culinary knives, for which Town Cutler is the exclusive dealer. In fact, when the noted knife maker was planning to branch out from hunting knives, he approached Garretson for advice. Likewise, Garretson learned how to make knives from Wilburn. “He is an artist, and I’m very inspired by the balance of the refined
“I’m trying to create a brand that comes from
experience and
feedback from
other chefs.”
Galen Garretson
and unrefined in his work,” says Garretson.
When he’s not making a knife or busy sharpening a knife for a customer, Garretson might be at at his butcherblock table making his specialty line of leather goods. To help his customers protect their knives from getting dinged or bent, he offers scabbards and knife rolls, which he can customize with leathers like cobalt-blue stingray. “Knives are the most important tools in the kitchen, so it’s really important to take care of them,” he says.