Knifewear

If you call Kevin Kent a knife nerd, he won’t mind. In fact, that’s his Twitter handle (@knifenerd), particularly appropriate since Kevin owns Knifewear, a purveyor of Japanese knives.

Kevin’s path to the world of knifery happened via the culinary route. After apprenticing as a chef at SAIT Polytechnic, he worked in Calgary’s restaurant industry, then he took a trip to the Middle East where he ran out of vacation money. Shortly thereafter, however, he secured a position as a sous chef in London’s prestigious St. John Restaurant, which specializes in nose-to-tail dining, serving cuisine that utilizes every part of the animal from non-traditional meat cuts to internal organs and bone marrow.

It was there that Kevin was introduced to the Japanese knife. “The knife was so much better than anything else I had ever used,” Kevin recalls, adding a Japanese knife is sharper – and stays sharper longer – than its counterparts.

And that’s how his journey into the world of Japanese knives began, a journey that takes him to Japan a couple of times a year and resulted in him opening the first Knifewear location in Calgary’s Inglewood district in 2008.