We recently sat down (well actually, we stood in the busy kitchen) with Bonnie Morales of Kachka right here in Portland, OR. While her team worked around her, Bonnie shared with us everything she loves about her STEELPORT 8” Carbon Steel Chef Knife and why building a strong community is essential to making the best products.
If you’ve never been to Kachka, walking in feels like you’ve just entered the best dinner party. It’s eclectic and homey, bright and inviting, you’ll sit with your own party, but it wouldn’t feel out of place to lean over and toast with the neighboring table. Bonnie brought the spirit of her Belarusian (Soviet/Russian) heritage and opened it to everyone.
Kachka opened in April of 2014 and right from the jump started earning accolades. Notably, it was a James Beard semi-finalist for Best New Restaurant and finalist for Best Chef: Northwest. Kachka is constantly making lists in Eater, Food & Wine, Bon Appetit, GQ, and Tasting Table, to name a few, of essential restaurants, not only in Portland, but nationwide. Even the Kachka cookbook, which dives deep into the soul of Russian food and drink, won Food52’s Piglet award in 2018.
Upstairs in the mezzanine of the restaurant is home to Kachka Lavka, Portland’s very own Russian Market, which opened in 2019. Here not only can you shop for housemade and imported grocery items, as well as kitchen tools, including STEELPORT knives, but you can also sit and have lunch at the counter or enjoy a happy hour cocktail on the weekends. Swing by and pick up some caviar, blinis, and a mother of pearl spoon to take your dinner party to the next level.
And, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention the DUMPLINGS (aka pelmeni and vareniki). You can buy these right here in Lavka, enjoy them downstairs in the restaurant, or even join the Dumpling of the Month Club, which features the classics and also members-only special flavors. Bonnie’s husband Israel Morales, co-owner of Kachka, says Bonnie seduced him with her dumplings, and honestly, we get it!
The blade to the handle is perfectly balanced, it just does the work for you - - razor sharp with none of the fuss and holds its edge for what seems like forever. This knife is everything.
Bonnie grew up in Chicago with parents who had recently left their whole lives behind in Soviet era Belarus. In her childhood, as is the plight of many first-generation Americans, Bonnie wanted to fit in with her peers and was embarrassed by her family’s different culinary traditions. It wasn’t until she met her husband and saw that non-Russians could actually enjoy these foods that she fully reconnected with them and with the stories of her heritage.
At the heart of everything Bonnie does is tradition, family, and community. It’s easy to see why, when hearing the story of how Kachka, and Bonnie herself, came to be. From her Jewish grandmother’s daring escape to freedom in 1941, to her own experience as a child of immigrants, her goal has been to keep the food, stories, and traditions alive.
So it’s no surprise that when STEELPORT began making knives using tried and true traditional methods, Bonnie was one of the first fans among Portland chefs.
“Eytan (STEELPORT’s co-founder and bladesmith) has always been a really big supporter of what we do, and I think that a lot of this is about community. We help each other grow. But, at the end of the day it has to be driven by quality, what Eytan has built with the product itself, it has all of the knowledge and passion that he has for knives behind it, and you can see that.”
Bonnie shares our team’s values around the importance of quality and how it shines through with simplicity. “We stick to the basics - when you have something with very few ingredients, there’s nothing to hide behind, so the technique has to be really good and the quality of what you’re sourcing needs to be incredibly high. That’s why we are so lucky to live here in the Pacific Northwest and in Oregon. We have access to incredible raw materials.”
This rings true for both the food she makes and the tools she uses. Bonnie had known Eytan for years as a customer of his culinary knife retail space, Knife House PDX. "When Eytan started making his own knives, we couldn't wait!” said Bonnie. “STEELPORT is, as far as we know, THE ONLY drop-forged carbon steel knife made in the US that we’d have access to. Plus, it's made with all US materials and crafted right here in Portland by Eytan and his team.”
Holding out her STEELPORT 8” Chef Knife she notes, “It has the weight of a European or German knife, but the finesse of the Japanese knife. And you need both. That’s the thing, Japanese knives are so finicky and German knives are a little too burly, and this is the perfect mix of the two. The blade to the handle is perfectly balanced, it just does the work for you - - razor sharp with none of the fuss and holds its edge for what seems like forever. This knife is everything.”