Michał Lipiński

Michał Lipiński was first introduced to the forge by his blacksmith grandfather, and that early exposure to heat, tools and the satisfaction of turning ideas into useful objects shaped everything that followed. He went on to specialise in artistic metalwork at art school, where his attention narrowed to culinary knives, then to study industrial design at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts with the explicit aim of improving those designs. Now a full-time maker, he runs KOVARES from Kraków, where what began as a hobby alongside his grandfather has become a fully developed practice and a clear personal language.

Michał describes his knives as highly decorative objects built on a performance-first design, and the order matters. The geometry comes first, with thin convex grinds tuned for clean release and refined feedback on the board, supported by careful ergonomics and a balance that suits long prep. Steels are chosen for cutting performance and hardened to standard, and the construction shows the discipline of someone trained equally in craft and industrial design — a Polish design tradition that has long held material honesty and considered form in higher regard than surface flourish. Only once those fundamentals are settled does the more expressive surface treatment come into play, so the decorative element is never asked to do the work of the steel.

What sets KOVARES apart is the inventiveness of those surfaces. Michał has developed a range of distinctive finishes that read as genuinely his own, refined enough to sit comfortably alongside the high-end Japanese and European work he admires, yet recognisably the output of a single design-led studio in Kraków. The fit and finish are consistently high, and the knives feel composed in the hand as well as on the shelf. For Modern Cooking, Michał represents the design-conscious end of contemporary Polish bladesmithing, a maker whose work rewards collectors and serious home cooks in roughly equal measure.