Atelier Perceval

Design cutlery from Thiers. Clean, almost architectural lines, entirely hand-finished. Perceval makes knives the way others make watches, each piece is designed for hand and eye alike.

Emmanuel Chavassieux wasn't a knife maker. He was an industrial designer. In 1993, in Thiers, the world capital of cutlery, he had an obsession: creating a table knife without a bolster, as pure as Scandinavian design. A knife unlike anything Thiers had produced for centuries. In 1995, Eric Perceval joined and brought the cutlery expertise that was missing. The company was registered on August 1, 1996.

The 9.47 was born from this encounter. The name comes from the blade angle: 9.47 degrees. A radical table knife, no bolster, pure lines, that would end up on three-star restaurant tables in Tokyo, New York and Paris. In 2010, the 9.47 Prestige won the IWA International Knife Award in Nuremberg. In 2012, GQ called them "maybe the nicest knives in the world."

In 2008, Yves Charles, a former Parisian chef, acquired Atelier Perceval and pushed the brand toward gastronomic luxury. Philippe Etchebest chose Perceval for his starred restaurant. The EPV label came in 2009, renewed in 2020. The workshop has about 6 knife makers. Cutting is mechanical, but finishing is entirely manual: blade grinding, mechanism adjustment, polishing. The steel is proprietary. Handles come in ebony, pistachio wood, resin, or mammoth ivory.

In March 2022, Félix Poché took over. The workshop remains at 20 avenue des États-Unis in Thiers, independent, artisanal, confidential. The range extends beyond the 9.47: folding knives (including "Le Français"), kitchen knives, outdoor knives. But the 9.47 remains the manifesto, the object that proved an industrial designer could revolutionize a millennial craft by asking one simple question: what if we removed everything unnecessary?