Katto: Finding Calm, One Cut at a Time

What is the origin of the name Katto? Does it have a special meaning?

The idea behind the name was alarmingly simple: it means 'cut' in Japanese. We use the most wonderful steel from Japan called AUS10 for all our knife blades, so it seemed fitting. Naturally, we spent weeks debating the name and then just decided to get on with it!

You've said that cooking helped pull you through a pretty difficult time - what was it about the act of cooking that felt so healing or grounding for you?

I used to work in advertising and had a pretty full-on anxious breakdown aged 26. I did all manner of things to try to get better, but few things worked as well as cooking. It didn't seem to matter if I was peeling carrots or podding peas, but there was just something calming and meditative about the process.

Cooking was the cornerstone of my recovery and, from speaking with our customers, I'm not alone in that.

“Time spent cooking was time that I wasn't worrying.”

Was there a specific meal or recipe that first made you think, 'there's something about this, I want more of it in my life'?

It's not the recipes so much as the process of cooking, which I find therapeutic: making the list, doing the shopping, laying everything out, washing it, slicing it, and so on. Even something like a simple green salad or a little omelette has the ability to calm and restore.

Do you have any top kitchen tips or hacks you've learnt along the way?

Very boring and middle-class, but I really believe in buying the absolute best ingredients at the peak of their season. There's just no point buying supermarket tomatoes in February: they taste of nothing and cost a million pounds.

The only other thing is salt. We Brits are particularly frigid when it comes to seasoning, which is odd given that we make the best stuff in the world.

If you get to the end of a recipe only to discover that it tastes of nothing, often a fat-fingered pinch of Maldon or Halen Môn salt is all you need.

Katto started with knives and is now taking on the rest of the kitchen. What items are you most excited about expanding into next?

We have so many exciting new pieces coming, from carving kits to nutcrackers, cheese knives to napkin rings. My current fascination is with the simpler appliances, like toasters and kettles. It seems bonkers to me that no one has done a really good, really beautiful one.

We were kitting out the kitchen of a Middle Eastern client recently, who must have spent gazillions on the marble surfaces, the ovens, and the coffee maker. And then there, sitting sheepishly on the side, was a plastic toaster from Russell Hobbs. Which is no shade on Russell, but it would be fun to offer an alternative.

Katto knives are made to last and be passed on. Do you have any kitchen heirlooms you've inherited?

My mum is a wonderful and adventurous cook, but thankfully, she's still very much in the pans and not looking to relinquish any of her kit anytime soon.

So the inheritance to date has been more in terms of recipes and books. I have her original copy of Delia Smith's Christmas book, which includes instructions on how (and when) you should prepare your husband a glass of sherry.

I left that page open last year, hoping that my wife would see it and, in a fit of trad wife Christmas passion, start rummaging around for the Harvey's Bristol Cream. Reader, she did not.