Karol Karyś

Kraków, Poland · High Performance Kitchen Knives Inspired By Brutalism

Karol Karyś

made by Karyś

Karol Karyś approaches kitchen knives through the lens of industrial design, drawing heavily on brutalist architecture, exposed structure, and raw material honesty. Forged in Kraków, his knives often favour mono steel and restrained surface treatment, allowing geometry and proportion to carry the visual weight of the design. The result is a highly individual body of work that feels architectural, tactile, and deeply considered without losing sight of cutting performance.

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The latest from made by Karyś

Recent work

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

About the maker

On the workshop

Karol Karyś forges knives in Kraków, Poland, where he is studying Industrial Design at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts. He came to bladesmithing through bushcraft, an early fascination with the knife as an object that soon merged with his other disciplines. What began as a personal project became a serious practice, and the made by Karyś workshop now reflects the same disciplined design thinking he brings to his studies. For a maker still in his early twenties, the work shows an unusual clarity of intent, with each piece treated as a considered design problem rather than a stylistic exercise.

His knives draw openly on the brutalist architecture that defines parts of Kraków and the wider post-war European landscape — a movement built around minimalist form, raw materials, and structure left honestly exposed. Karol works mostly in mono steel, letting the geometry of the blade carry the design rather than relying on decorative pattern welding, though on more elaborate pieces he reaches for San Mai constructions cladding Apex Ultra in wrought iron or copper. The surface treatment still reads as architectural rather than ornamental. Textures on both blade and handle are traced from facades and stairwells observed on the streets of his city, then translated into finishes that feel honest and purposeful: cleanly resolved planes, deliberate weight, and tactile, controlled surfaces.

What distinguishes a Karyś knife is the integrity of that translation from reference to object. The textures are not applied decoration but a structural part of the knife's identity, and the fit and finish keep pace with the conceptual ambition. Performance is taken just as seriously as form, with edge geometry and balance treated as part of the same composition. To find this degree of individuality and technical control in a maker of his age is rare, and his work sits naturally within Modern Cooking's collection of design-led, maker-first bladesmiths whose practice we expect to follow for many years.

Steel preference

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Signature construction

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Cutting edge steel

1.2419

Low-alloy tungsten-chromium tool steel

Typical HRC
62–65
Corrosion class
Carbon
Production
Conventional
Origin
Germany (DIN 105WCr6); approximately the European 125SC family in spirit but more alloyed

1.2419 is the German tungsten-chromium tool steel that sits a clear step above the simple carbons in alloy content, with about 1.05 percent carbon, 1.0 percent chromium, and 1.1 percent tungsten. It is closely related to 1.2519 (which adds vanadium) and to its leaner sub-variant 1.2419.05.

In a kitchen knife it runs at 63–64 HRC, sharpens cleanly, and produces an edge with notably better wear resistance than W2 or 80CrV2. The W- and Cr-rich carbides do real work; toughness is good for the hardness, and patina behaviour is moderate. It is a steel that rewards a maker who can dial in heat treatment and grain control.

European bladesmiths have used 1.2419 for kitchen and outdoor knives for decades. It is well respected in the Solingen tradition and remains a credible choice for a refined carbon-edge knife. Among the makers Modern Cooking carries, Martin Huber, Karol Karyś, Fredrik Spåre, Michał Lipiński, and Birch & Bevel work in this steel. The community sometimes discusses 1.2419 in the same breath as Aogami #1 — not chemically identical, but in a similar performance neighbourhood.

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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 (developed by Tobias Hangler and Marco Guldimann; project led by Hangler at Messerschmiede Hangler)

Apex Ultra is one of the most carefully engineered non-stainless kitchen knife steels in modern circulation, and the project of an Austrian smith — Tobias Hangler — who set out, with Marco Guldimann, to design a steel for the kitchen rather than borrow one from another industry. It carries roughly 1.25 percent carbon, around four percent chromium, modest tungsten and molybdenum, and a small vanadium addition. The composition is tuned to produce a fine, evenly distributed carbide structure that supports hardness up to 67 HRC while delivering toughness comparable to 52100 at the same hardness — a combination that is the entire point of the steel.

What this means for a cook is unusual permission. You can ask a maker to grind an Apex Ultra knife thin enough that a White #1 owner would call you brave, then ask for the heat treatment to land at 65 HRC, and the resulting edge will hold for longer than Aogami Super without microchipping. It sharpens cleanly on natural and synthetic stones alike and patinas slowly because of the chromium content, though it is not stainless and should be treated 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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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

Mono Steel

A knife forged from a single piece of steel — no laminations, no clad layers. The simplest and most direct construction. The entire blade is the cutting steel, with no softer outer jacket to protect or contrast it. Most contemporary Western kitchen knives in carbon and stainless steel are mono-steel constructions, as are honyaki and most European bladesmith work.

The trade-off is straightforward: mono-steel knives are easier to forge, sharpen, and reason about, but the entire blade carries the cutting steel's properties — including its reactivity if it's a clean carbon. There is no soft jacket to protect a more brittle core from impact, so the heat treatment and geometry have to do all the work.

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From the archive

17 pieces

Past pieces

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

View full archive (17 pieces) →

Limited release

Reserve your place

Karol Karyś'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 Karol'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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