Kurt Glatt

Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany · High Performance, Handcrafted Kitchen Knives

Kurt Glatt

Messerschmiede Glatt

Kurt Glatt forges kitchen knives by hand as Messerschmiede Glatt, from a workshop in Freiburg im Breisgau on the western edge of the Black Forest. His stated aim is a technically perfect object with the very best function, and the work bears it out — exacting heat treatment in Apex Ultra and AEB-L, constructions running from monosteel through multilayer composites to mosaic damascus, and finish work that keeps the honest forged character of the blade rather than polishing it away. The knives are made in small numbers and built to be used.

View recent work

About the maker

On the workshop

Kurt Glatt forges kitchen knives in Freiburg im Breisgau, on the western edge of the Black Forest, where every piece is made by hand from bar stock to finished handle. What drives the work, in his own words, is a long-standing pull towards things that are functional and beautiful at the same time. Each knife is a one-off, and very little of what he makes stays available for long.

On the workshop

The priorities are legible in the finished piece. Steel and heat treatment are where Glatt is most exacting — Apex Ultra and AEB-L, worked across monosteel, multilayer composites such as san mai and five-layer gomai, and mosaic damascus. Geometry is resolved as a cutting problem rather than a styling one. Decoration is applied last, and the aim there is a particular kind of restraint: a blade that still reads as forged rather than machined, carrying the character of the process instead of being polished flat. Handle materials range widely — he chooses per knife rather than working to a house combination — and every detail that recurs sits on a knife already resolved as a tool.

Glatt's own account is that he sets out to make something technically perfect that also functions at its very best, and that he builds knives to give their owner — and their owner's grandchildren — years of use. That is close to how we think about it. The knives have real presence, but nothing about them asks to be looked at rather than used. For Modern Cooking, Messerschmiede Glatt is a German workshop making performance-first kitchen knives with a clear and disciplined design signature, and a natural fit for the Collectors Selection.

Steel preference

,

Construction range

Monosteel to mosaic damascus

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.

View full steel guide →

Cutting edge steel

AEB-L

Fine-grain martensitic stainless steel

Typical HRC
60–63
Corrosion class
Stainless
Production
Conventional
Origin
Sweden (Uddeholm)

AEB-L is the original fine-grain razor stainless — a steel developed for safety razor blades and rediscovered by knifemakers as one of the most refined stainless choices available. About 0.67 percent carbon and 13 percent chromium, with very low impurity content, allow the steel to take a near-carbon-grade edge while remaining genuinely stainless.

In a custom or boutique kitchen knife AEB-L typically lands at 60–62 HRC, sharpens with the easy feel of a clean carbon, and produces a polished apex that holds an edge longer than its modest carbide content might suggest. Toughness is exceptional: at 62 HRC, AEB-L compares well to 52100 at the same hardness in published toughness data, which is the point that contemporary metallurgical writing on the steel has emphasised. It is the steel that taught a generation of makers that stainless need not feel coarse.

AEB-L is heavily used in the modern American custom scene and is an honest answer to the cook who wants the feel of a clean carbon without the maintenance burden. Among the makers Modern Cooking carries, Lew Griffin and Oliver Märtens work in AEB-L. It is closely related to Sandvik 13C26 and a direct ancestor of 14C28N.

View full steel guide →

Limited release

Reserve your place

Kurt Glatt'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 Kurt'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.

Reserve your place

We'll only email you when there's something to say.