Is your kitchen knife or chefs knife a little ill? Go and see the doctor
Mark Peters these days is better known by his alias – The Knife Doctor. Based in the Brisbane suburb of Stafford, Mark decided many years ago that he was much more interested in knives and looking after knives than he was in his original trade as an offset printer, and swapped over to doing something he was much more passionate about. He’d grown up in a family where he’d seen his father and grandfather sharpen their knives at home and had honed his skills there.
The Knife Doctor operates both a retail storefront and a workshop, and supplies a very wide range of customers, from enthusiastic home cooks to hunters to medical professionals! Although the business started off as just a knife sharpening workshop, the opening of the retail outlet five years ago has seen that side of the business grow continually – in fact the retail store had to shift into larger premises eighteen months ago due to demand.
These days, as well as selling a whole range of high quality knives and knife accessories, the workshop sharpens around 12,000 knives every year, from professional chefs knives, to good quality knives used by home chefs, to blades and knives used in the medical world.
Mark stocks both the I.O.Shen professional knife range and the Nirey range of electric knife sharpeners.
“Luke (Luke Benjamin at Total Knife Care) came in and gave me an I.O.Shen oriental slicer to try out a couple of years ago and I really liked it, in fact I still use it all the time. I shouldn’t say this, but I haven’t had to sharpen it in that time, I’ve just run it over a honing steel a couple of times.” says Mark.
“We’re seeing more and more chefs changing over to the I.O.Shen range right now, and part of the reason might be that they genuinely don’t need to be sharpened quite as often as other knives. And I am seeing more and more chefs not knowing how to sharpen their knives – so maybe there’s a connection there!” he speculates.
Mark is seeing some interesting trends at the moment and two in particular. Firstly he’s seeing a lot more people doing home food preparation. And this isn’t just making cakes, this is more like home sausage making and home butchering, where good knives are essential. Secondly he’s seeing a lot of city dwellers getting very interested in hunting and bushcraft, even a sort of ‘survivalist’ movement. Maybe we’ve got Bear Grylls to thank for that.
And what does Mark do when he’s not helping people with their knives? In fact he is a knifemaker and leatherworker in his spare time. Perhaps Total Knife Care will stock his range one day!
http://www.knifedoctor.com.au/
The Knife Doctor
Shop 2, 7 Wolverhampton Street
Stafford QLD 4053
