Tomislav Sokač

Croatia · High Performance, Handcrafted Kitchen Knives

Tomislav Sokač

Radiona Breg

Tomislav Sokač of Radiona Breg draws on a lifetime around machining, welding, and forging to produce kitchen knives with a distinctly Croatian workshop character. Influenced by Japanese bladesmithing but grounded in family metalworking traditions, his work balances rustic texture, strong geometry, and refined cutting performance. The collection reflects a maker deeply connected to both craft lineage and practical kitchen use, resulting in knives that feel honest, capable, and highly individual.

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The latest from Radiona Breg

Recent work

Recent releases from this workshop. Each made by hand in extremely limited numbers.

About the maker

On the workshop

Tomislav Sokač grew up inside metalwork. The family business in Croatia — based around Koprivnica — gave him an early grounding in machining, forging, and welding, and from a young age he was working alongside his father and developing the skills that would later define Radiona Breg. His first fascination with bladesmithing came from the Japanese katana, but it was a career in cinematography and lighting that took up his early working life. When his father began moving toward retirement, the prospect of taking over the family forge brought him back to metal, this time on his own terms.

A love of cooking gave the new direction its focus. Fittingly, Sokač is the Hungarian word for cook or chef, and the name sits naturally alongside a practice built around the kitchen knife. Radiona Breg blades are rooted in traditional metalworking discipline and shaped by a deep fascination with Japanese bladesmiths, but the resulting knives are not imitations. Profiles, finishes, and details carry a rustic, classic character that is recognisably Croatian — a result of generations of family craft meeting a more contemporary, performance-led brief. Fit and finish reflect a lifetime spent working with metal, and the cutting performance lives up to the visual confidence of the work.

The character of Radiona Breg is in that meeting of inheritances. Family forge, machinist precision, cinematographic eye, and Japanese influence all sit inside the same workshop, and the knives carry traces of each. The work is unmistakably Tomislav's, but it also carries the weight of the generations behind it. We are pleased to present Tomislav Sokač within the Modern Cooking Collectors Selection, where Radiona Breg's blend of family craft, controlled geometry, and quietly Japanese-influenced design adds a distinctive Croatian voice to the lineup.

Steel preference

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Signature construction

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Cutting edge steel

Apex Ultra

Low-alloy fine-grain carbon tool steel

Typical HRC
64–68
Corrosion class
Carbon
Production
Conventional
Origin
Austria (ApexUltra project — developed by Larrin Thomas, Marco Guldimann and Tobias Hangler; FFG-funded, associated with Messerschmiede Hangler)

Apex Ultra is one of the most carefully engineered non-stainless kitchen knife steels in modern circulation — a steel designed from the ground up specifically for handmade knives, rather than borrowed from another industry. It was developed by metallurgist Larrin Thomas together with smiths Marco Guldimann and Tobias Hangler. It is a low-alloy carbon steel — roughly 1.25 percent carbon, 2.6 percent tungsten, 1.5 percent chromium and a 0.4 percent vanadium addition, with manganese and silicon kept low. That composition is tuned for high purity and a fine, evenly distributed mix of chromium-enriched iron carbides, tungsten carbides and vanadium carbides — the structure that lets it hold a very hard edge without the coarse carbides or plate martensite that sap toughness in other high-hardness carbon steels.

What this means for a cook is unusual permission. Apex Ultra carries very high toughness in the 66+ HRC range — the highest of any knife steel its developers have tested at that hardness — so you can ask a maker to grind it thin and run the heat treatment hard, and the edge will hold far longer than the carbon steels smiths usually forge, without microchipping. It forges and forge-welds much like 52100 or 1.2562, sharpens cleanly on natural and synthetic stones without needing diamond plates, and its modest chromium slows patina a little — though it is not stainless and should be cared for as a carbon steel.

Apex Ultra has become a signature steel of the European maker community, and the Modern Cooking catalogue carries an unusually deep bench of smiths working in it. Tobias Hangler himself heads that group, alongside Marco Guldimann, Benjamin Kamon, Martin Huber, Jonas Johnsson, Karol Karyś, Birch & Bevel, and MCx. It is genuinely a step forward — one of the relatively few cases where the marketing claims and the underlying metallurgical data are saying the same thing.

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Cutting edge steel

1.2562

High-alloy tungsten tool steel

Typical HRC
62–65
Corrosion class
Carbon
Production
Conventional
Origin
Germany (DIN 80WCrV8)

1.2562 is a more heavily tungsten-alloyed German tool steel with approximately 0.80 percent carbon, 0.3 percent chromium, 1.85 percent tungsten, and a small vanadium addition. It sits at the high-W end of the conventional kitchen knife steels and produces an unusually wear-resistant edge for a non-PM, non-stainless carbon steel.

In a finished knife it runs at 63 HRC and behaves like a tougher, somewhat keener relative of 1.2442. Edge retention is meaningfully better than the simple carbons; toughness is good for the hardness; patina behaviour is conventional. The trade-off is sharpening: the W carbides are noticeable on softer stones, and the steel benefits from a vitrified or natural fine stone in finishing.

It is comparatively uncommon in finished kitchen knives but well regarded among makers who specifically want a high-tungsten European carbon. Among the makers Modern Cooking carries, Tobias Hangler and Dominik Filip work in 1.2562. Treat it as an enthusiast's choice.

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Blade construction

Laminated Steel

A category covering knives built from multiple layers of different steels forge-welded together. The hard cutting steel is sandwiched between softer outer layers (cladding) that protect the core, add toughness, and often contribute visual contrast.

The most common laminated constructions in the Modern Cooking catalogue are:

SanMai (三枚) — three layers: hard cutting steel in the centre, softer cladding on both sides. The traditional and most common form.

GoMai (五枚) — five layers: a hard core, two intermediate layers, and two outer layers. Adds visual depth and structural complexity.

KuMai (九枚) — nine layers: similar logic, with more cladding layers for additional pattern and structural variation.

GoMai and KuMai are often chosen not only for the additional layers and visual depth, but also because the intermediate layers can act as a nickel diffusion barrier — limiting carbon migration out of the core into the cladding during forge welding, and protecting the core's intended carbon content through the heat of the forging process.

In all cases the cutting performance is determined by the core steel; the outer layers are cosmetic and structural. The lamination contributes corrosion protection (when a stainless jacket clads a carbon core), reduced reactivity, and the visible boundary between core and cladding that gives the knife its character.

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Blade construction

Mosaic Damascus

A sub-discipline of damascus in which the maker arranges the contrasting steels into deliberate pictorial or repeating patterns — stars, knots, signatures, complete images — rather than the flowing, fold-driven patterns of conventional damascus.

The technique is associated with the modern American school and with a small number of European specialists. As with conventional damascus, the cutting performance comes from whichever steel forms the cutting edge; the mosaic pattern is, almost by definition, a display feature.

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From the archive

6 pieces

Past pieces

Pieces from this workshop's previous releases. No longer available, kept here for record.

View full archive (6 pieces) →

Limited release

Reserve your place

Tomislav Sokač's work is highly sought-after for its distinctive combination of craftsmanship, performance, and design, with each piece produced by hand in extremely limited numbers — a pace of production that naturally cannot keep up with demand.

For those hoping to secure a piece through Modern Cooking, joining the waitlist is the best way to register your interest in Tomislav's work and share your preferred dimensions, design preferences, and intended use. As opportunities become available, we use this information to guide future allocations with care and consideration.

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