Japanese Kitchen Knives, Explained
The short answer. Most home cooks need two Japanese knives: an all-rounder (a 210 mm gyuto or a 165–180 mm santoku) and a small petty knife. Japanese knives are thinner and harder than German ones, so they cut more cleanly and stay sharp longer, but they need a whetstone instead of a pull-through sharpener.
- Which knife do I need?12 Japanese knife types, what each one is for, and the two to start with.
- How do I keep it sharp?Whetstone sharpening, step by step, plus the angle and grit tools.
The everyday Japanese knives
These five are double bevel, so they work in either hand and sharpen like any kitchen knife. Each outline is drawn to scale.
- Gyutoalmost everything: vegetables, meat, boneless fish
- Santokuvegetables, boneless meat and fish, in a small kitchen
- Nakirivegetables, push-cutting and fine slicing
- Bunkavegetables and boneless proteins, with a sharp tip for detail work
- Pettysmall jobs: shallots, herbs, fruit, trimming meat
Specialist knives such as the yanagiba (sushi knife), deba and usuba are covered in the full list of types.
Santoku, nakiri or chef's knife?
The most common question, and the answer depends on how you cut. A santoku suits short push-cuts on a small board; a gyuto (Japanese chef's knife) suits rock-chopping and bigger jobs; a nakiri is for people who mostly cut vegetables.
- Santoku vs chef's knife
- Santoku vs nakiri
- Damascus knives: what the pattern means, and what it doesn't
How Japanese knives differ from German knives
- Harder steel. Usually around HRC 60–64 against 56–58 for German knives, so the edge lasts longer, but it can chip if you twist it in bone or frozen food.
- Thinner edge. Sharpened to about 12–15° per side instead of 20°, which is why they glide through onions and tomatoes.
- Lighter blades. Less weight to push through food, and often a lighter wooden handle.
- Whetstone care. Pull-through sharpeners set to 20° thicken the edge. A 1000/6000 whetstone is the right tool.
Free sharpening tools
- Sharpening angle toolHow high to lift the spine for your knife and angle, in millimetres and stacked coins.
- Whetstone grit chooserWhich grits to use, in what order, for the edge you have now.
From the blog
Why trust this site
We buy the knives and stones we write about with our own money, measure them, and use them in a home kitchen before recommending anything. We're not a shop, we don't take payment for placement, and we have no connection to any knife maker or to the store that once used this domain. How we test.
Why "Sakai"?
Sakai, in Osaka Prefecture, has been a blade-making town for centuries and is best known for the single-bevel knives used by Japanese professional chefs. The name is a nod to that history, not a claim that we are based there. The history of knife making in Sakai.