Set by hand. Served with care.
Edmund Ashworth opened Thorn Panel Line in the spring of 2011 in a narrow shophouse on Fuyacho-dori in Kyoto's Nakagyo ward. He had spent the previous eight years working in delicatessens in London and Lyon, and before that a short, format…
The first two years were difficult. The smokehouse behind the shop was too small, the first batch of miso-cured ham was over-salted and had to be discarded, and the neighbourhood took time to understand what the shop was. Edmund kept the b…
Edmund Ashworth grew up in Sheffield and trained in delicatessen work across London and Lyon through the early 2000s, spending three years at a charcuterie counter in Bermondsey before moving to a small letterpress print shop in Bristol where he set type by hand for two years. He arrived in Kyoto in 2009 on what was meant to be a six-month stay and opened Thorn Panel Line in 2011. He is particular about register, about the thickness of a cut, and about the temperature of the smokehouse drum. On quiet Tuesday mornings he still bakes the rye crackers himself. He reads old broadsheets for pleasure.