Four weeks after the Eaton fire claimed his home, bladesmith Nicholas Berkofsky was back at work in his East Los Angeles studio. His first project? A hand-forged pizza cutter to benefit his neighborhood pizzeria, Pizza of Venice, which was destroyed in the fire that swept through Altadena.
As he walked back and forth between the propane-fueled forge and a tall hydraulic tire press, Berkofsky exuded calm despite the recent upheaval in his life.
“Being back in the studio helps give me a sense of normalcy,” Berkofsky said as he hammered the red-hot Damascus steel on an anvil. “I don’t know what I would have done if I had lost my tools.”
While Berkofsky finds comfort in resuming his everyday routine, his custom knives are anything but ordinary.
What makes them unique in an era of mass-produced goods and easy access to big-name brands you can find online?
“They have more soul,” Berkofsky said of his patterned carbon-steel knives, which feature elegant handles he has sculpted in rare wood such as charred Osage orange, black ash burl and live edge double-dyed maple.
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One look at the knives in his studio shows that no two are the same. “With forging, I can taper the thickness of the blade from very thick at the heel to super thin toward the tip, making for a very unique-feeling blade in the way it cuts and the balance between blade and handle,” Berkofsky said.
Berkofsky, 30, was born in England and moved to Los Angeles when he was 10. Over the years he has lived in Hollywood, Silver Lake, Highland Park and eventually Altadena, where he, his wife, Chelsea Munoz, and their 2-year-old son, Julian, have lived in a rental house for the last six years.
“I absolutely loved Altadena,” Berkofsky said quietly. “Our landlord was talking about selling the home in the fall, and all we could think about was how much we wanted to stay there.”
Nicholas Berkofsky works on a limited-edition hand-forged pizza cutter in his East Los Angeles studio. He plans to raffle it off to benefit his local pizzeria, lost to the Eaton fire.
As he watched the fire creep over Eaton Canyon on Jan. 7, Berkofsky said he was reminded of his first forge. “As soon as you take the air off the fire, the furnace explodes in flames,” he said. “All of a sudden, that’s what happened on the mountain. I could tell the embers were getting hotter and hotter, and eventually, the mountain blew up in flames.”
Although residents of western Altadena did not receive evacuation orders until 3:25 a.m., as reported by The Times, the couple packed up Julian, their three cats and their dog around midnight when their house began to fill with smoke.
“I grabbed the passports and jewelry, but there were so many things I should have grabbed,” he added, referring to everything they left behind, including photographs by his father, Mike Berkofsky, who took a famous photo of Jimi Hendrix.
From top: a Gyuto chef’s knife, a wood carving knife and a utility knife made by Nicholas Berkofsky.
A charred pair of knives, created by Nicholas Berkofsky, that he recovered from his destroyed home in Altadena. He hopes to repurpose them into new knives.
But like so many people who evacuated that night, Berkofsky presumed they would return to find their home and neighborhood still standing.
The following day he went back, but what he encountered crushed him. “Our house was on fire,” he said. In an act of kindness he said he wouldn’t forget, one of the firefighters retrieved Julian’s toy fire truck in the backyard. “It was really sweet of him,” the bladesmith said. “He couldn’t save the house but he saved the fire truck. It was the only thing that wasn’t on fire.”
For Berkofsky, childhood possessions hold deep meaning. His grandfather nurtured his love for knives, often giving them to him beginning when he was 9 years old.
As a child, Nicholas Berkofsky’s love for knives was more than a hobby — it was a passion that would shape his future.
(From Nicholas Berkofsky)
“I don’t know what I would have done if I lost my tools,” Berkofsky said, referring to the loss of his home in the Eaton fire.
His journey to becoming a bladesmith and crafting specialty knives, including utility and carving knives, began with his childhood fascination with fantasy and historical films like “The Lord of the Rings.”
Later, as he grew older and enjoyed camping, wood carving, growing vegetables and cooking, his interest expanded to kitchen knives, “especially as they are the most frequently used knives both by myself and the majority of the world,” he said.
While working as a landscape designer focusing on edibles and native plants, Berkofsky started carving wooden spoons during his free time. “I was pretty young and didn’t have a lot of clients,” he explained, smiling.
Self-taught bladesmith Nicholas Berkofsky, who lost everything in the Eaton fire in Altadena, feels fortunate to still have his studio.
Watching YouTube videos helped him progress quickly from wood carving to knife making. “I set up a makeshift charcoal forge in the backyard and used my mother’s hairdryer as a forge blower,” he said.
When he took an introductory class at Adam’s Forge, a blacksmithing school in Simi Valley, he realized he had already taught himself the basics.
“I had many failures,” he admitted, “but slowly, I figured it out.”
In 2017, his mother, Cleobelle Pollock, encouraged him to attend the Echo Park Craft Fair, where she planned to sell Indian Kantha quilts and textiles. Although he felt sheepish about selling his rehabbed vintage knives among the works of more established artists, his mother encouraged him to “give it a try.”
Nicholas Berkofsky uses a belt grinder to sharpen one of his hand-forged knives.
His knives sold out, and Fell Knives was born. (“Berkofsky Knives didn’t sound great,” he said when asked about his branding, which references fallen trees.)
Inspired by his success, Berkofsky started rehabbing vintage knives and then moved into stock removal, in which a knife is developed by “cutting it, grinding it and putting a handle on it.” After three months he started forging, which he explains as “when you start with a rectangle of steel, put it in the forge, bring it up to 1,800 degrees and hammer it to shape instead of just cutting it into shape like stock removal.”
Today, most of his inventory consists of custom orders and things he enjoys making, such as knives with mixed-media metal and Japanese-style wood relief handles. “I have built my business around kitchen knives [which can cost as much as $1,000 apiece], but I enjoy making showpiece knives like swords and daggers,” he said. “A lot of bladesmiths will do long projects where they chip away at something magnificent, but I’m a struggling artist in L.A. and need to get my orders out.”
“The way Nick forges his metals is special,” said Kevin Napoli, who purchased two of Berkofsky’s kitchen knives and a pair of cremation lockets for him and his son to carry his father’s ashes. “I like that he does everything himself and does not buy premade Damascus. I’m a builder and like to support people who make things with their hands. Nick is not your average maker; he has an artist’s eye.”
Nicholas Berkofsky holds blocks of dyed wood, hybrid wood and resin with turquoise. “Creating the handles is definitely one of the funnest parts of making a knife,” he said.
Although he feels lucky to have found a studio apartment for his family in Echo Park, their rent has increased. “When it’s good, it’s good,” he said of working for himself, “but there are some stressful months.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, he recalled how his kitchen knives took off while people were sheltering at home and cooking more. “I sold 20 knives a week,” he said wistfully, adding that he’s “not great at working for other people.”
Recently, Berkofsky started making jewelry using recycled precious metals that he hammers, fuses or casts from hand-carved wax molds.
A signet ring cast in sterling silver, left, and 14K gold rings by Nicholas Berkofsky of Fell Knives. (Nicholas Berkofsky )
Looking ahead, he would like to “spend half his time making kitchen knives and the other expanding my crafts, learning more skills and incorporating exotic and beautiful materials.”
He’s proud that every knife he forges, hammers, grinds and polishes — sometimes taking him more than three days — “feels good in the hand.” The same is true of his jewelry. “I try to make my pieces smooth and comfortable,” he said, holding a signet ring cast in sterling silver that he etched with a Japanese crest of a lotus flower.
Capitalizing on all that he has learned, Berkofsky also teaches workshops on bladesmithing, including an introductory class that is a prerequisite for more advanced courses. In this class, he covers the basics of forging a simple utility paring knife, including heating the grip, grinding and finishing the blade.
The completed pizza cutter, hand-forged by Nicholas Berkofsky.
(Nicholas Berkofsky)
As a child, Berkofsky’s love for knives was more than a hobby — it was a passion that would shape his future. Now, as a full-time bladesmith, he shares not only his appreciation for an age-old process but the hope his work offers. A recent visit to his studio revealed that his knives are more than just tools. The pizza cutter, for instance, is a symbol of goodwill that serves as a reminder that despite the collective loss to wind and wildfires, the Altadena community is still standing.
This story originally appeared on LA Times
