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Korin Japanese Trading Corporation produces specialty knives and restaurant supplies
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When Saori Kawano, founder and president of Korin Japanese Trading Corporation, came to America from her native Yokahoma twenty-five years ago, she had little more than the proverbial shirt on her back -- jeans, one sweater, one T-shirt, and perhaps her most useful possessions --an English dictionary and a tape recorder to help her learn the language. Traveling with her husband of two months, Chiharu Sugai, the couple was prepared to stay a year. To earn spending money, they took night jobs (daytime was devoted to school), at Nakagawa, a midtown Japanese restaurant, she, waiting tables and hostessing and he, dishwashing. Little did she dream then that one day she would own a business that would be one of the top ten wholesale suppliers of tableware and knives to upscale restaurants in the nation (and, as of the last year, open to the public for retail sales).
Today, America's top-toque chefs are among Korin's devoted customers -- four-star names like Wolfgang Puck, Charlie Palmer, David Bouley, Nobu Matsuhisa, Jean-Georges Vongerichten. Kawano also counts loyalists among the brightest luminaries in the hospitality industry -- hotel chains like W, Starwood Hotels, Mandarin Oriental, Las Vegas's flashy MGM Grand and Bellagio, and Atlantic City's new Borgata.
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| Korin Japanese Trading Corporation features a variety of knives |
One would never know, looking at the showroom's narrow, unimposing storefront situated inconspicuously on Warren Street, that boldface names from lofty culinary heights seek Kawano's counsel to locate just-right plates or serving pieces for their celebrated restaurants…and that all swear by the knives they purchase there.
It was a long and interesting haul, though, from that midtown restaurant to this thriving business. When Kawano and Sugai began working at Nakagawa, there were very few Japanese restaurants in the city, and their subsequent growth in popularity had barely begun. Kawano, who was a music student and who had formerly and formally trained in ikebana (the Japanese art of flower-arranging), was very much attuned to the aesthetic trappings of the restaurant business. As she began to notice the escalating presence of Japanese restaurants, and as she heard her boss bemoan the fact that suitable and attractive Japanese tableware was not easy to find, she resolved to develop a little sideline.
A trip home netted her 1,200 teacups that she then had to sell. In between school and her job, she traipsed around Manhattan, from Japanese eatery to eatery, displaying her wares. Amazingly, they were snapped up. With the blessing and encouragement of her mentors at Nakagawa, she incorporated, rented a cramped midtown showroom and a downtown warehouse on North Moore Street. With business mushrooming, she attempted to rent a larger showroom, only to discover that the landlord of the loft didn't believe that a woman could actually be the owner of this enterprise. As an amusing, anecdotal aside, Kawano recounts how she collared a Korean gentleman -- a businessman from the nearby garment industry -- imploring, "Can you just pretend to be my president?" He was pressed into service, pushing papers around a desk and looking important while she negotiated the real estate deal.
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| "Matte and Shiny" china line, designed by Nobu Matsuhisa, available to the public this March |
The charming Kawano laughs as she recalls just how strapped for cash she was in those days. With profits poured back into the fledgling business, she and Sugai (who had begun to work with her in the business) had to share a single desk, as there was only enough money to acquire one. She spent days shuttling from restaurants to stores (even Hallmark card shops), lugging her heavy tableware, usually spreading her "line" out on the kitchen floor of a restaurant. She even extended her reach to Washington and Boston. Wherever she went, the elegant, functional, and unusual Japanese stoneware was always a hit.
A quick study, Kawano realized that restaurants needed readily stackable dishes to economize on shelf and storage space; that colors and shapes were critical to presentation; and that individuality mattered. The more time she spent in restaurants, the more she learned of chefs' needs, and the more she fine-tuned her stock. By the early 90s, she astutely identified another market to penetrate: The pickiest chefs were using Japanese knives, but they were forced to send their tools back to Japan to be sharpened, a time-consuming and expensive undertaking.
Thus, she pinpointed another importing opportunity, and Sugai saw a new skill he could hone. A gifted artisan and talented musician (he plays the biwa, a Japanese stringed instrument), he realized that if he could master the delicate art of knife-sharpening, Korin could service its customers' tools stateside. So, Sugai dispatched himself to Sakai in the Osaka region, where the illustrious knife-making business is centered.
In Japan, knife-making, like so many other artisanal pursuits, is the domain of masters who are revered. Knife-making is an especially high Japanese art because of the ritual and history of sword-making. And, because Japanese and Western-style knives are sharpened differently (Japanese knives are sharpened on one side only), Sugai set about learning the tradition-steeped, Japanese methods for sharpening these razor-like implements.
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| You'll find walls of knives inside Korin Japanese Trading Corporation |
Today, Korin stocks virtually hundreds and hundreds of knives, mostly Japanese styles, although some Western knives have crept into the inventory. Two entire walls of the showroom are lined with vitrines displaying nothing but a sea of knives. Arguably works of art, many have handsome handles of ebony or water buffalo horn, for example, or stately kanji ideograms etched in their blades. The products come from a dozen Japanese makers, many family "companies" (some have as few as four employees, others, a "whopping" 20), that have operated for hundreds of years. One such concern, Masamoto has been in business 400 years, and another, the legendary Aritsugu (a perennial favorite of discerning chefs), 700 years. Some knives take as long as two weeks to make and require the talent of four or five artisans, each skilled in a particular craft.
While the average price of most knives is anywhere from $100 to $350, there are knives available for as little as $60, and for as much as $4,500. Metal composition varies, as do styles and purposes. For a complete primer on these amazing implements, Korin's catalog is a good read and for an in-depth guide to knife-sharpening, Sugai has produced a DVD, The Chef's Edge, available at the showroom and on line.
By mid-1995, Kawano decided it was time to consolidate and streamline her operation in larger quarters that would combine both her Tribeca warehouse and a showroom. And she wanted to be downtown, in the vicinity of the warehouse. She liked the area; its streets provided easy access for loading and unloading, and moreover, it was near her largest customer, Nobu. Thus, her Warren Street "empire" was begun.
The showroom's core business, tableware, now encompasses everything from stoneware sake sets to the most stunning, white, "Matte and Shiny" bone china, designed by Nobu Matsuhisa for his eponymous restaurant. This frosty-white dinnerware, the perfect canvas for food, features organic shapes, enhanced by the two surface textures. (It will be available to the public in March.) In addition, tucked along one wall there is an eclectic mixture of cooking accessories and novelty merchandise: Sets of ornamental chopsticks, Japanese kitchen implements (vegetable slicers, bamboo cookware, and the like), and even adorable children's erasers in the shape of colorful sushi.
Korin Japanese Trading Corporation, 57 Warren Street; 212-587-7021; www.korin.com and www.japanese-knife.com
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