Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada · High Performance, Handcrafted Kitchen Knives
Jesse Thompson
Nordquist Designs
The latest from Nordquist Designs
Recent work
Recent releases from this workshop. Each made by hand in extremely limited numbers.
About the maker
On the workshop
Jesse Thompson makes knives under the Nordquist Designs name in Kelowna, British Columbia. His route to the bench ran through the studio rather than the forge: a Fine Art degree at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, where he followed a deliberately interdisciplinary path across gold and silver smithing, graphic and product design, woodworking, and blacksmithing. That breadth—and a designer's appreciation for the history of how objects are made—shapes everything he builds today, giving his work an unusual fluency in both form and manufacture.
Where many makers forge to shape, Jesse begins at the milling machine, machining a precise hollow into each blade before hand-grinding it to its final geometry. It is a subtractive, engineered approach that removes a remarkable amount of steel but rewards him with crisp, repeatable grinds and thin, keen edges. Each blade is then hardened—heated to around 850°C, quenched in oil, and double tempered to balance hardness against toughness—and individually hardness-tested before it goes any further. Nothing leaves the shop unverified.
Handles begin as blocks of natural or stabilized hardwood, milled for the tang and then shaped by hand and eye with a range of tools; where a leather wrap is called for, he sews it himself. Working alone and reaching for Canadian-sourced materials wherever possible, Jesse produces collector knives, limited runs, and small-batch production pieces—each one made entirely in his own shop, and each one built to last a lifetime.
Steel preference
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Signature construction
Limited release
Reserve your place
Jesse Thompson'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 Jesse'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.
