Japanese Kitchen Knives

A Japanese nakiri knife is a rectangular, double-bevelled vegetable knife with a flat edge and a blunt tip, built for straight up-and-down cuts that meet the board along the entire blade. Its name translates roughly as “knife for cutting greens”, and as this overview of the nakiri bōchō explains, it has long been a home-kitchen … Read more

Here’s the dirty secret of the knife world: you don’t need to spend £200 to feel what a Japanese blade can do. A well-chosen affordable Japanese santoku knife glides through an onion with a whispering, effortless slice that makes your old supermarket block look faintly embarrassing. That’s the promise. The catch? The market is a … Read more

What is a Japanese chef’s knife? A Japanese chef’s knife is a thin, light, hard-steel all-rounder, usually a gyuto (literally beef knife), built for precise slicing, dicing and chopping. Compared with a Western blade it tends to have a flatter profile, a finer edge and harder steel, so it glides where heavier knives wedge. Here’s … Read more