photo credit: Takeshi Miyamoto
I have often been asked how it came to this...
MARINA MENINI
Japanese knife and sharpening specialist
I was born in Tokyo, from a Japanese mother and a French father, and I grew up in France, immersed in both cultures.
I fell in love with cooking while working in a café in London during my art studies. So my studies finished, I left to live in Japan to go further in the kitchen. I worked in several restaurants in Tokyo, then in New York.
And one day, I applied to work at my favorite kitchenware store in Tokyo, in the Kappa-bashi district. It started like this...
The shop was like the backstage of all the restaurants in Tokyo, and even the world. I swallowed the knowledge to be operational as quickly as possible. Service, sharpening, customers and their knives, hundreds of knife references, their manufacturer, the various production sites, local competitors, blade engraving, all types of knives and their uses, customers demanding, exceptional craftsmen.
French Japanese Marina Menini worked in different kitchens in London, Tokyo and NY, to become a knife advisor and salesperson in Kappabachi Tokyo.
She then trained in sharpening with a knife making artisan in Sakai, Osaka. She opened a workshop and shop in Paris in 2017 to offer advices and sharpening services to professional as well as amateur and organises workshops for all levels in France and Europe.
In Paris in 2016, we founded DOMA with Aya Ito and Philippe Richeux, then we opened the DOMA workshop in the fall of 2017.
Among many other activities that we have at DOMA, in our boutique workshop, I sharpen the knives entrusted to me by professionals or amateurs, always manually with a stone. I lead workshops, in restaurant kitchens, in schools or at the DOMA workshop. I select, advise and sell quality tools, which I hope you can use for as long as possible. I put all these products online on this site so that they are easily accessible. You can ask me for advice at any time by writing to me, or come and visit us at the workshop.
