Do you love knives like a samurai loves katana, or are you just looking for a new chef uniform?
Former chef Eytan Zias dropped me a line recently to tell me about his new shop, Phoenix Knife House, located at the corner of Goldwater and Indian School in Scottsdale:
My name is Eytan Zias, I was born and raised in Israel (school, army, etc.), I moved to America in 1995. I attended the Scottsdale Culinary Institute - graduated in 2000. I was very lucky to get an externship at Aureole (Chef Charlie Palmer) which opened the doors for me to work at places such as Craft (Tom Colicchio), La Cote Basque (Jean-Jacques Rachou) and Fiamma NY (Michael White). I moved back to Arizona to help with the opening of the Scottsdale Fiamma (James hotel) and later moved to Kai once the James closed.
I've always been fascinated with knives (but only if I could cook with them), and have been using the Japanese blades for years. When I moved here, none of my co-workers have ever seen these kind of knives and I quickly became the "go to guy" for Japanese knives. So, about 2 1/2 months ago I opened my shop, I am on my own (no partners, backers or employees) I have basically put everything on the line for it. There is only one other store of this kind in the U.S (that I know of) and that is Korin in N.Y. Besides them, these knives have only been only available on line, and some of them - I am the only one selling them in the States. I am getting well known with in the professional circle, but would like to reach the "foodies" also (and I don't advertise).
