The Lubel Story.

Knife making, it’s not the most obvious or even sensible job to have. Certainly when I started on my knife making journey I got a lot of strange looks from people. ‘You make knives?’ they’d say quizzically, whilst quietly taking a cautious step backwards.

This often puzzled response to what I do has never deterred me. For me at least, passion and creativity wins over anything else, and this passion for crafting precise, timeless and exceptional tools is why I make knives. Read on for the whole story.

Why Knives?

Culinary knives have always been with me in some way. I can remember buying my first Japanese kitchen knife in my late teens. What little I had left of my student loan that should probably have gone on food, instead got spent on one awe-inspiring object to make food with. Shortly after that I bought my first sharpening stone, and the love affair with knives and razor sharp edges began.

Fast forward almost two decades and a successful career in design and software, I found the desire to design and build tangible things with my hands was stronger, and more necessary for my happiness, than ever. I’d spent years watching and studying Japanese knife makers and had convinced myself that in order to be a knife maker you also had to be a ninety year old Mr Miyagi style figure, hunched over a dark forge in an ash covered workshop hidden somewhere in the backstreets of an ancient Japanese village.

At some point in 2018 I said to myself, it’s now or never. Soon after that a crate of tools arrived, I put together my workshop and started work on my first knife. Applying my well honed skills in design, problem solving, self learning and pushing for perfection, I’ve worked tirelessly to bring my vision and dream to life. I believe in the rule of balance, that great design should appeal to both the logical and emotional mind. My knifes, crafted to make cooking both easier and more ceremonious, are a direct expression of this belief.

Perhaps one of the biggest inspirations behind my work is where I live, and where Lubel Knives was born. I now live and work in the hills of South Wales, but I started Lubel whilst in Chamonix-Mont-Blanc in the French Alps, surrounded by towering mountains, vast glaciers and alpine woodland. My surroundings have been, and continue to be a huge inspiration for my knives. These elements that envelop my workshop directly influence and inform my design process. I hope that, even in some tiny way, the spirit of the hills and mountains lives within every knife I make.

Where does the name come from?

The story behind the Lubel name probably isn’t what you’d expect. My name isn’t Lubel, it’s Emile Bennett. My great-grandparents were Jewish immigrants, escaping from Poland to the UK between the first and second World Wars. Like many Jews at the time, they changed their surname to hide their origins and to blend into their new surroundings without fear of being discovered for who they were. In their case, from Lubelski to Bennett.

Knowing this part of my history, I’d always wanted to use my original family surname again at some point - it was changed out of fear and that fear no longer exists in the same way. So, when I was searching for a name for my knives I was naturally thinking of Lubelski. I mentioned it to my dad, who told me that my great-grandad was the head butcher for Leeds synagogue, which at the time was the largest synagogue in the UK. My dad’s memory of him was of a huge scimitar butchery knife and leather strop always hanging off his kitchen door.

There’s an ageing photo of my great-grandad from around 1920, standing in tall, as I am, in his work clothes. I am the spitting image of him, it’s uncanny. Until starting on my journey into knife making I never knew any of this about him. Once I’d learnt this part of my history, it had to be Lubel for my knives. There would be no better way to bring my family name back to life than this.

I guess, somehow, knives have always been there in my genes…

The Future…

The skill of knife making is never complete. The breadth of techniques, styles, materials, types of knives and the vast sea of knowledge that goes with all of these aspects of the craft are endless. The idea that I will become a master of knife making seems quite counter-intuitive to me, and in many ways would take the joy out of what I do. The idea of becoming a master of the knife making journey? That is exciting and inspiring to me, and is my future with this wonderful craft.

What I do know for sure is that I don’t see myself having a range, or pre-defined set of knives I always make. Knife making for me is about creative expression combined with striving towards technical excellence. It’s important to me to maintain this creative freedom, to try new ideas with every knife, putting a little bit of ‘me’ in each that marks them as being made from my hands, and for my customers to know that their knife is and always will be something completely unique.