Entertaining

Hank pepper mills and salt bowls

Subtle in style, strong on character.

By Maggie Scardifield
Subtle in style, strong on character.
Christian Tucker and Breeze Callahan grew up as family friends in Canberra, but it wasn't until the pair moved to Melbourne independently as adults that they decided to work together. A year ago their design studio, Hank, was established and already restaurants such as Canberra's Italian & Sons and Lee Ho Fook in Melbourne have custom-made Hank pieces on the table. Hank's first product, Forbes, is a hand-moulded pepper mill made of concrete, brass and timber; and its sidekick, Ike, is a salt bowl.
Why the decision to design a pepper mill, Breeze?
They're either expensive or quite ugly, so we knew there was space for a pepper grinder that was a bit different.
What's the Hank production line like?
Christian is an industrial designer and has designed each and every piece that goes into the pepper mill. We don't turn the wood ourselves but we do make the moulds, mix and pour the concrete, and sand and assemble them. Because we do all that by hand in our shed, we can only make so many at a time.
Talk us through your choice of materials, Christian.
They're architectural, balanced and tactile, the concrete especially - it's quite tricky. I love doing something that I can't YouTube how to do. I just do it a hundred times over to understand what works and what doesn't.
Why the name Hank?
We like to name all of our products in a way that gives them an instant personality. We imagine Hank as a Swedish craftsman who moved to America in the mid-century and loved to make things by hand.
Hank, Forbes pepper mill and Ike salt bowl, $250 a set.
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  • undefined: Maggie Scardifield