DAGHORN : creating for Chefs

C R E A T I N G F O R C H E F S

Working for haute gastronomie requires 'technical' skills that are different from those required for one-off pieces. Prototypes have to be made entirely by hand, always bearing in mind that the prototype will have to be produced in several hundred units. These 'clones' must have an aura all their own, and the quality of the workmanship must be on a par with that of the handcrafted piece. But that's not the greatest difficulty.

Above all, working for top chefs requires different 'sensitive' skills. You need to have a deep understanding of what makes a chef's cuisine unique in all its aspects (visual, gustatory, physical, intellectual, etc.): from the creation to the customer's experience.

When I work 'for' a chef, I never try to create just a 'beautiful' object. I admire chefs too much to do that. Putting a knife on a top chef's table is an intrusive gesture. I have to take the time to understand the link between the individual and what he creates. Great cooking is expressive and intimate. I always have to anticipate the fact that "my" knife is going to have to enter "his" home. What's more, I know that it will serve as a handrail for other people when they visit.

If the knife is at the heart of a whole range of interactions in a creative environment (the containers, the lights, the gestures of the team in the dining room, the kitchen, the sounds, the surrounding nature, the biosphere, etc.), it can't help but bring a certain violence to it: cutting up, disassembling, deconstructing, breaking down what has been sensitively brought together; that's how a knife works. All my attention is therefore focused on designing a knife that does not impose "its" violence, but rather performs its function by placing the hand that holds it in a certain state of elegance, precision and attentiveness. To bring the hand of the guest into a certain 'attentive' state so that it can break down the chef's 'attention' with tact and prolong it.