Japanese Kitchen Knives

Yo, Joe here. Welcome to my Japanese Kitchen Knives website and blog. I usually write in a food and lifestyle magazine, mostly about the hottest kitchen stuff and the best kitchen tools, but my favorite topic is Japanese chef’s knives. That’s why I keep this blog; to tip my fellow foodies about the highest quality Japanese cutlery.
Japanese Kitchen Knives

How to Choose the Best Japanese Kitchen Knives

I bet the first thing you wonder about when you are buying your first Japanese kitchen knives is: should I buy them one by one, or get the whole set in one go? Well, I’d advise you to check your style of cooking. Getting a whole set will save you some time and maybe a few bucks, but you might not use all of the knives included, or you might find that you don’t like the quality of that brand after using it.

I prefer to buy single knives for the highest quality, and especially when I can get the best deals. If I ever buy knives sets I only buy sets of 2 or 3-pieces and only when I trust the quality of the brand.

Ok, now you want to buy some knives. Which types do you need?

Click here to read up more on the Types of Japanese Kitchen Knives in my guide post, where I have written about the following types of Japanese kitchen knives:

Deba knives – cut fish, chicken and meat
Santoku knives – utility knives
Nakiri knives – cut veggies
Tako hikis and yanagi bas – slice raw fish and prepare seafood
Udon or soba kiris – to make Japanese noodles
Hochos – different kinds of hochos can fillet eels, tunas and other big catches

What Makes it a Good Japanese Kitchen Knife?
So what are the factors that determine how good a Japanese kitchen knife is? Here they are:

Edge retention ability
Made of the finest material
Comfort
Strength
Looks cool (No joke!)

Read more about these qualities in my guide post: How to Choose the Best Japanese Kitchen Knives.

JAPANESE KITCHEN KNIVES – Top Reviews

Best Japanese Knives Set – The best combination of santoku knives in one set.
Best Value Japanese Knives – Quality knives for those with a budget and don’t care much about looks.
Best Japanese Knives for Home Cooking – The sharpest beauties in the market. Home cooks will love these.
Best Quality Japanese Knives – Professional kitchen knives for professionals.
Japanese Knives with Durable Handles – Unique kitchen knives with durable and bacteria-resistant handles.

I will update my blog soon with more Japanese Kitchen Knives reviews. Go to my blog now!

Where did the Best Japanese Kitchen Knives Come From?

I learned from friends and fellow foodies about the pleasure of using Japanese kitchen knives. If you’ve gotten yourself a high-quality Japanese cutlery, most probably they are manufactured from Sakai. For your information Sakai is the capital of samurai sword manufacturing since the 1300s.

Other places famous for its kitchen knives is Seki, Gifu which today is considered the home of modern Japanese kitchen cutlery. Here, where most of the major cutleries producing companies are based, produce the highest quality kitchen knives both in the traditional Japanese and western style.

Miki City is another famous center which is well known throughout Japan for its knife making traditions. If you’re looking for knives mainly for their craftsmanship’s, you might want to buy knives made from this city.

There’s a vast differences between western and Japanese knives. If you browse through the knives’ aisle in your local stores or in websites selling them, you would notice that most Japanese knives are single ground. You would come across knives that are angled from both sides.

There are also those which are only angled from one side and its other side of the blade being flat. These knives have edge ranging from 70/30 for the average chef’s knife to the 90/10 for professional sushi chef’s knives.

What these numbers signifies are the degree of ground on the right and left blade of the knives. For the 70/30 say, they are manufactured to have 70 percent of it is ground on the right hand side of its edges while the remaining 10 is ground on its left.