Bob Kramer Knives by ZWILLING

After 10 years working in professional kitchens, Bob Kramer thought he knew the secret of keeping his knives sharp. But, he felt he didn’t. After noticing that the other chefs had the same problem, he saw an opportunity. The quest to learn how to best sharpen knives consumed him. He bought a ticket and traveled the country in search of learning the art of sharpening. When he returned to Seattle, he started his sharpening business in the back of an old mail truck and drove from restaurant to restaurant. He would ask them to give him their most damaged knives with the promise “if I don’t make them better than new, you don’t have to pay.” He always got paid and his passion was born.

Of course, to better understand how to sharpen, Bob needed to understand how the knives are made. Then an ad for Bladesmith School opened the door to the next level. At the class, he felt like he stepped back nearly 2000 years. The primitive world of beating on hot steel and making tools that surpassed any knives he ever sharpened was fantastic. The art of sharpening knives was no longer enough, he had to make them. And he needed to make them for the world he knew – kitchens.



That was 1994. Since then, he has become one of 120 Master Bladesmiths in the US. To earn this title from the American Bladesmith Society, one must undergo years of study and then pass a Master’s Test. The test required building a 10″ Bowie knife made of 300+ layers of steel. This one knife had to cut through a 1″ free hanging rope in one swing, chop through a two-by-four twice, shave a swatch of arm hair (after the two-by-four), and finally, bend the blade at a 90-degree angle without the blade breaking. If you succeed, then you submit five flawless knives (including a 15th-century Quillion dagger. On the heels of passing his Master Bladesmith test, a colleague from the food world asked to do a profile on him for Saveur Magazine- A global guide to cooking, entertaining, and food travel. When the article hit the stands in March of 1998, he was shocked by the response. This was the start of what became an almost 4 year back order that lasted nearly 10 years. Bob Kramer has now devoted his life to the single-minded pursuit of crafting the perfect kitchen knife, and is so grateful to those who appreciate his work.

Today Bob Kramer knives are a combination of old-fashioned craftsmanship, artistry, and modern technology.