Greenfield Gyuto

The Greenfield Gyuto began with Elias Sideris and Josh Donald separately obsessing over old culinary knives on either side of the United States—Elias at his knifemaking and fabrication workshop in Greenfield, MA; the ground zero of American cutlery manufacturing, and Josh in San Francisco, CA; restoring vintage and antique knives. Both Eli and Josh were getting to know old New England knife manufacturing and had kindred ideas for integrating these features into a new knife design. The remaining elements of the Greenfield Gyuto were inspired by Josh’s interest in the history of chef’s knives in 19th century Japan. Together in the Bay Area, Eli and Josh brought these diverse bits of knife history together to create the Greenfield Gyuto.

In the late 19th century, cutlery industries boomed in Europe and America. With the end of isolationism in Japan, Western food flooded in, necessitating a new genre of knives in the Japanese, handmade tradition. Japanese smiths made knives using traditional Japanese blacksmithing techniques, but inspired by the European chef knife and appropriate for Western-influenced, yoshoku cooking. This new cooking style was emblematized by the kanto-gyuto: the original Japanese interpretation of the French chef knife. It featured a thinly-ground blade with a full tang and riveted handle in the Western tradition. The Greenfield Gyuto similarly marries the finely ground kanto-gyuto blade with a solid workhorse-style handle conceived in New England knife factories.

New England’s industrial prowess birthed some of the greatest knife manufacturers of the time, with iconic styles, no-nonsense utility, and innovative methods of production. As trade with Japan flourished, it’s conceivable that New England industries could have made a knife for export to the professional chefs of Tokyo very much like this one. Rather than in the late 1800s, it has now materialized in 2023, and we trust it will meet the sensibilities of today’s cooks and show good results.