Antoine Kniamen

Annecy, France · High Performance Kitchen Knives Inspired By Renaissance Design

Antoine Kniamen

Adonis Forged Arts

Antoine Kniamen forges under the Adonis Forged Arts name near Annecy in eastern France, producing knives that balance sculptural identity with serious cutting performance. Working alone from raw steel to finished edge, his work moves between integral constructions, in-house damascus, kurouchi finishes, and industrially influenced details, always grounded in disciplined geometry and careful heat treatment. Each piece carries a distinct authored character while remaining unmistakably Antoine's work.

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The latest from Adonis Forged Arts

1 available

Recent work

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

About the maker

On the workshop

Adonis Forged Arts is the workshop name Antoine Kniamen forges under, working alone from a setup near Annecy in eastern France. The Adonis name points to more than branding — it draws on a Renaissance-era idea of the artist-craftsman, where mastery of material and the act of making belong to the same gesture. His integral handle series is named for Hephaestus, the Greek god of metalworking, and the same classical register shapes how Antoine approaches the knife as one of humanity's most enduring innovations. He works as a solo maker, and the workshop's output reflects the deliberate, unhurried cadence of a single hand resolving every step from raw stock to finished tool.

On the workshop

His priorities are explicit. Heat treatment, grind and profile come first, and the stylistic treatment follows only once those fundamentals are cleanly resolved. Steel selection is wide and considered, ranging through Apex Ultra, German tool steels such as 1.2519 and 1.2419.05, and his own in-house forged damascus. Across the catalogue Antoine draws on tsuchime, damascus and kurouchi finishes, develops integral handle work through the Hephaestus series, and explores an industrial-elegance register that includes TIG-welded I-Beam bolsters and pattern motifs drawn from sources as specific as the Harley Davidson straight-leg frame. The visual character is rich, but it always sits on top of disciplined geometry rather than in place of it.

What sets Antoine apart is the way each Adonis Forged Arts piece carries a distinct identity while still reading as the work of one maker. There is a coherence across the range that comes from a single craftsman making finely judged decisions at every step, and a willingness to let each knife be its own resolution rather than a copy of the last. For Modern Cooking, his work fits the Collectors Selection naturally — maker-led, materially considered, and built to be used as well as admired. Owning an Adonis knife means living with a functional art object in the most classical sense of the term: tool, sculpture, and authored work resolved into one.

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 (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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Cutting edge steel

1.2419.05

Low-alloy tungsten-chromium oil-hardening tool steel (variant of 1.2419)

Typical HRC
60–63
Corrosion class
Carbon
Production
Conventional
Origin
Germany

1.2419.05 is the leaner, oil-hardening sub-variant of 1.2419, with somewhat reduced carbon and tungsten — closer to a 95WCr5 in spirit. The "0.05" designation signals an oil-quench specification rather than a wholly separate alloy.

For kitchen knife purposes, 1.2419.05 sits between the simple carbons and full 1.2419 in performance: a slightly easier heat treat, slightly less edge retention, similar feel at the stone. It is a sensible "step up from W2" steel for a smith who values forgiving heat treatment and a cook who values an honest, no-drama carbon edge. Toughness is good; patina behaviour is conventional.

It is uncommon enough in finished knives that you will rarely see it called out by name; when you do, treat it as a near-relative of full 1.2419 with marginally different working characteristics. Among the makers Modern Cooking carries, Martin Huber and Adonis Forged Arts work in 1.2419.05.

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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

10 pieces

Past pieces

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

View full archive (10 pieces) →

Limited release

Reserve your place

Antoine Kniamen'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 Antoine'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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