ARCOS

ARCOS is a Spanish knifemaker in Albacete, a city known for blade making for centuries, with beginnings going back to 1734. Its main business is kitchen and trade knives for slaughtering and butchery, and technically what marks its work out is stainless steel with nitrogen added, which it calls NITRUM, with hardening and chilling of the blade: the edge holds longer before it needs steeling, and resists rust better against meat, blood and repeated washing. The handles are tough synthetics that hold well in a wet hand, a point anyone who has stood over a carcass knows the value of.

These are working knives, not pocket knives: for the butcher and the skinner, for anyone who slaughters his own animal at Eid or after a trip to the desert, for the meat trader, and for the home cook who wants a serious knife. A folder to carry on a trip is another kind.

Al Huwaila is an authorised ARCOS agent. In the butcher and kitchen knives section: slaughtering knives, skinning knives for skinning and cleaning, cleavers in models B1, B2 and B3 for bone and joints, knives in models B7, B8 and B9, and steels to bring the edge back between one carcass and the next. Ask on WhatsApp about sizes and models in stock, or see them in the shop in Souq Waqif.