Simon Maillet

Simon Maillet came to knife making after many years as a professional chef, a path shared by a number of the most thoughtful contemporary makers. Born in France, he moved to England in 2017 and was soon drawn to Sheffield, the historic home of British steel working. The city's long association with cutlery and edge tools gave him both context and community for the practice he was building. Sheffield is where the workshop now sits, and where Simon has developed a quietly serious reputation, first among British chefs and now with a steadily growing international audience.

His philosophy is unambiguously pragmatic. The knives are tools first, intended to be used, sharpened, and maintained over long working lives rather than admired in a display case. Much of his approach draws on traditional Japanese methods: blades are ground on a water wheel and finished on whetstones, producing very flat and consistent bevels that respond predictably to maintenance. The aesthetic that results is elegant but minimal — clean profiles, restrained finishing, no unnecessary decoration. Beneath the surface, the work rests on a careful bedrock of process, the kind of detail that is hard to see but easy to feel in the hand.

For years Simon was something of a well-kept secret, with much of his work going quietly to British chefs through word of mouth. International collectors and cooks have since taken notice, and his knives now travel well beyond the UK. The combination of chef's-eye function, Sheffield setting, and Japanese-influenced grinding gives the work a clear identity that does not need ornament to make its case. We are proud to present Simon Maillet within the Modern Cooking Collectors Selection, where his refined restraint and tool-first discipline speak directly to the cooks and chefs at the centre of our audience.