Instructors: Joshua Donald and Lisa Weiss of Bernal Cutlery
$25 Center Members, $35 General Public

We are partnering with the Bernal Cutlery at their knife and kitchenware shop in the Mission District for a special cooking demonstration and open house!

Please join us for a unique event at Bernal Cutlery, a local San Francisco store established in 2005 specializing in culinary knives, kitchenware and sharpening supplies sourced directly from traditional craftsmen in Japan, as well as knife sharpening using Japanese whetstone and kaiten toishi (rotating grinding wheel).

The event will feature several activities– a culinary demonstration and tasting, a knife sharpening demonstration, as well as an overview of various Japanese culinary knives.

Participants will watch a cooking demonstration using a rice donabe and oshinko press, as well as enjoy a tasting with takikomi gohan and various oshinkos (Japanese pickled vegetable dishes). The rice donabe carried at Bernal Cutlery is sourced from the craftsman family that created the original modern donabe clay pots post World War II, when Japanese households began to use gas for cooking, thereby creating a need for new clay formulas in donabes. The Bernal Cutlery rice donabe allows one to cook rice in just 10 minutes over direct heat, with no need to adjust the flame. Rice cooked in an electric rice cooker stands no chance to that cooked in a rice donabe in flavor and in aroma!

Participants will also walk away with a pantry gift bag including Ago and Vegan dashi packets as well as a Yuzu Chili condiment that is wonderful on udon, gyoza, and even eggs and pasta.

Bernal Cutlery founder Josh Donald will also share the basics of sharpening at home and advise on easy knife maintenance tips as well as discussing strategies for different styles of Japanese knives, the basics of Japanese whetstone selection and the differences between sharpening Japanese and western knives. For those interested in a full, hands-on knife sharpening workshop, Josh will be teaching a knife sharpening workshop with us at the Center on Sunday, November 12.

Bernal Cutlery Shop

We are a full-service cutlery shop, offering sharpening services, Japanese and Western culinary knives, vintage knives, outdoor, pocket and craft knives, cooking tools and accessories, knife skills and sharpening classes, and more. We are proud to serve kitchen professionals, knife enthusiasts and home cooks alike.

Bernal Cutlery was established in 2005 by Josh Donald and Kelly Kozak in Bernal Heights, San Francisco in the slanting utility room in the back of an apartment on Cortland Avenue. Using $40 to buy an extra stone and print some fliers, Bernal Cutlery was born. Sharpening soon grew into selling vintage and antique culinary knives and after several years of working from various home workshops around Bernal Heights, we opened our first brick & mortar shop as a part of the then new 331 Cortland small business incubator collective in 2010. We have since moved twice due to outgrowing our shells and are now at home on Valencia Street in the dynamic Mission District.

What we carry:

We still find and refurbish vintage and antique knives, but our main focus is on sourcing high-quality new knives from around the world. While we have a soft-spot for the 100% handmade knives that we source from makers who still employ old techniques and small scale industrial networks, we do understand the need and value of industrial knife production and offer a range of factory-made knives that meet our high expectations for quality.

We specialize in culinary knives, with a majority of our selection coming from Japan, France and Germany. We also have selections from the USA, England, Spain and Vietnam, among a few others. For outdoor adventurers and craftspeople, we have Nordic knives from Iisakki Jarvenpaa and Helle, as well as American-made Benchmade knives and a revolving selection of Laguiole, Opinel and other regional French folding styles. Vintage and antique knives are also a specialty; from spectacular and historically important, to utilitarian-minded second hand knives. We try to always have a good stock of trusty old knives on hand.

In addition to knives, we stock a full selection sharpening supplies, focusing on the Japanese whetstones we use for our sharpening service. We import natural and synthetic whetstones from Japan that excel on a variety of steels and knife types. In addition to stones, we stock sharpening steels and ceramic honing rods from the USA, Germany and Japan, as well as leather and cork strops, abrasive compounds and steel and wood care products.

We also carry an ever growing selection of kitchen tools, pantry items and books, all specifically selected for their awesomeness.

All new knives sold at Bernal Cutlery come with a free follow-up sharpening. We are always happy to offer sharpening basics and tips as we sharpen in the shop, but for more in-depth instruction, take a look at our sharpening classes.

For more information on the shop and Bernal Cutlery’s classes, visit their website at: https://bernalcutlery.com/