Best Kitchen Accessories Beyond the Knife Block: A Curated Kitchen Tour

Introduction

Some of the best kitchen upgrades are not knives. The team at a Calgary kitchen shop made up largely of former chefs has spent years curating the tools, pans, boards, and books they actually use at home and at work. This list pulls together the standouts: grilling gear, prep tools, board care, and a sharpening setup that keeps an edge scary sharp. Every item here earns its place by solving a real cooking problem.

Cookbooks Worth the Shelf Space

The Family Meal by Ferran Adria is the pick recommended to almost every new home cook. Adria ran elBulli, one of the most legendary restaurants in the world, but this book is built around the simple staff meals served before service. Recipes use easy-to-find pantry and fresh ingredients, keep costs down, and include photos of every step so mistakes are hard to make. Portions are laid out for two, six, 20, or 75 people.

The second recommendation comes from the shop itself: the Knifewear Guide to Japanese Knives, written by Kevin Kent. It covers the stories of the blacksmiths behind the knives, with photos from their forges, deep dives into steel types and composition charts, and a beautifully shot breakdown of every style of Japanese knife at the back.

Charcoal Grilling, Japanese Style

The Shichirin is a travel konro grill built for focused charcoal cooking. An air vent lets you control heat and temperature, a grate sits on top for skewers or anything else you want to grill, and an internal vent feeds air up to the charcoal. It comfortably handles four to six skewers at a time, and konro-style grills are prized for delivering a strong sear and a deep smoky flavor. Bamboo yakitori skewers sized to fit these grills are also available, including vegetarian-friendly options.

A grill is nothing without fuel, and the Knifewear Ogatan charcoal is a practical choice. It is made sustainably from recycled sawdust and offcuts, burns hotter and longer than old-school lump charcoal, and lights far more easily than Japanese binchotan. It also costs less, making it a smart everyday fuel for frequent grilling, or a supplement to stretch pricier binchotan.

Pans and Everyday Prep

The tamagoyaki pan is the specialized square pan needed to make tamagoyaki, the Japanese omelet built by folding and rolling layer after layer of egg, often lightly sweetened with a touch of dashi. It is also genuinely useful beyond that: it works well for regular French omelets and even frittatas.

The Rykon vegetable peeler gets called the best vegetable peeler around, and the reasoning is simple: its carbon steel blade stays sharp longer than anything else and takes a keener edge, which makes peeling carrots and other vegetables effortless.

Small Chef Tools That Earn Their Spot

The Gestures chef spoon is the tool that gets used most outside of knives and pans. Chefs tend to collect small spoons for tasting and saucing, and this one earns its keep: it feels great in the hand, drizzles sauces cleanly onto plates, and the flattened top measures out to an exact tablespoon, so you can scoop, level, and measure in one motion.

Sharp knives deserve protection, and the Knifewear blade guards close onto the edge to protect it in a drawer or knife bag, while also protecting your hands from an accidental cut. Along the same lines, the shop’s own Sharpie exists because professional chefs label everything in the fridge with a name and a date; doing the same at home with leftovers and ferments ends the mystery-jar sniff test for good.

The Chef’s Press was created by California chef Bruce Hill, who needed to push more food out of a tiny but very busy professional kitchen. It is essentially a weight you can manipulate with tongs or tweezers: perfect for brick chicken, pressed sandwiches, crispy flat bacon, keeping burger patties in contact on the grill, or submerging items in brines for pickling. The presses stack so you can add weight as needed, and they cascade to cover larger cuts like a long flank steak.

Board Care and the Best Cutting Board

The Knifewear board wax moisturizes, conditions, and protects cutting boards, and it works on wooden knife handles, wooden utensils, and even unfinished furniture. It is made in Edmonton by a small local company using locally sourced ingredients and recyclable packaging.

The large end grain wood cutting board is a favorite for good reason. Made sustainably in Canada from Canadian-grown hardwood, it is cut across the tree so the wood rings show on the surface. That orientation means the board resists warping in dry or humid climates, and when you cut, the knife edge goes between the wood fibers rather than against them. The result is less dulling of your knife, a board that naturally heals the small nicks of daily use, and one of the longest-lasting cutting boards you can own.

A Simple Sharpening Setup

A set of sharpening stones covers every stage of edge care. The 220 grit starts a fresh edge on a very dull or chipped knife. The 1000 grit is a sensible stopping point for softer steels, such as many hunting knives or softer German-style knives. For Japanese knives, the 4000 grit refines the edge further, and the 8000 grit delivers that out-of-the-box, lightspeed sharpness. Using 4000 and then 8000 gives about the best edge you will ever put on a knife.

The sink bridge stone holder is arguably the best sharpening accessory around. It is highly adjustable to fit almost any sink, with simple wing nuts to tighten it and accommodate any size of stone. Rubber feet let you use it on a countertop instead. Bridged over the sink, you get water from the tap and drainage straight into the basin, which keeps things tidy and makes sharpening far more pleasant, with your knuckles clear of the countertop.

Buying Advice

Start with the item that fixes your most frequent frustration. If you love grilling, the Shichirin and Ogatan charcoal pair naturally. If your knives live loose in a drawer, blade guards and board wax are cheap, immediate wins. If cooking frustration comes from dull edges, the stone progression plus a sink bridge turns sharpening from a chore into a five-minute ritual. Home cooks still building confidence should put the cookbook first: better fundamentals improve every meal more than any single tool.

Conclusion

None of these accessories are gimmicks. Each one comes from chefs who cook constantly and keep only what works: a grill that sears, charcoal that burns hot and clean, a pan that folds perfect omelets, boards that protect your knife investment, and stones that keep everything sharp. Pick the ones that match how you actually cook, and your time in the kitchen gets noticeably better.