Made with a Japanese Gyuto blade, our chef knife does every cutting job you could give it.
Our Essential Chef Knife is a single sculpted piece of high-carbon stainless steel. The combination of stainless steel, carbon, and molybdenum makes it sharper, stronger, lighter, prettier and entirely rust-free. Forever.
A rare wet-grinding process (practiced by our 150 year old mill in Nishiosaki, Japan) give the knife a thinner blade and wider sharpening width — making it sharper to start and easier to re-sharpen later.
This precise blade is balanced with a hollow, ultralight handle that puts the knife's balance point further forward towards the tip— making it feel extremely agile and precise in use.
Introducing Gyuto — The World's Most Versatile Blade
The Gyuto is the Japanese version of the Western Chef knife. It also happens to be the most versatile blade shape there is.
The pointed blade tip of the Gyuto is good for precision cuts or working in tight spaces. The relatively flat heel section of the blade is excellent for ‘rock chopping’. It is tall enough to provide full surface contact with the knuckles when ‘tap chopping’ with the middle or tip of the blade. Finally, any portion of the blade can be utilized to either ‘push cut’, or ‘pull cut’.
In other words, throw out your knives. The Gyuto is all you really need.
Ultralight Weight
Stronger steel makes a thinner blade possible. And a steel unibody means that there are no heavy plastics in the hollow handle. As a result, the balance point sits further forward towards the tip and creates an unbelievably light knife that feels better, moves smoother and cuts faster.
An Insanely Thin Blade
That never compromises on strength or sharpness. Through a six step process, the high-carbon steel is sculpted to radically thin profile. This thinness reduces the resistance the knife faces, making cutting significantly less straining on the forearm and more enjoyable.
Made for Life
By making our knife out of stainless steel, carbon, and molybdenum - we’ve created a knife that will never rust. That’s how we’ve made a knife that won’t just last a decade - it will last a lifetime.
A Single Piece of High-carbon Steel
These aren't renderings. This is actually what our knife looks like. Our knife is a single piece of high-carbon steel, polished expertly so the handle and blade have a complete different feel and effect. A unique wet-grinding makes the blade shinier, thinner and sharper than any knife on your countertop— while a matte metallic brushing gives the handle natural traction and a velvety hand-feel.
No plastics to be found
Cookware is a dirty business. Most kitchen knives on the market are coated with made with plastics you’d never want near your food.
That’s why we made an knife that is free of any plastics. Instead, the entire knife is made out of stainless steel - making it much longer-lasting and easily recyclable.
Quenching - Blade blanks are heated to a high temperature of 1,050℃ in an electric furnace to be hardened and then instantly quenched, making the blade harder. Afterwards, to stabilize structure and improve wear resistance, the blade is tempered to 200℃.
Grinding - The blade is sharpened from its heel to the tip with a coarse grinding machine. Then, the surface of the blade is polished with a fine grinding machine to impart its iconic finish and make it stain resistant.
Wet Grinding - The thickness of the blade is reduced by grinding with a coarse grindstone. This gives the knife a lighter cutting motion. In addition, the sharpening gives the blades a mirror-finish, which reduces the resistance between the blade edge and food. Since the hard metal is finished with a fine grindstone, it is difficult to determine the amount of pressure that needs to be applied on the blade, making it a craft and not a simple science.
Buffing - Once the blades are sharpened, they will be left with a “burr”, which is a thin layer of ragged metal raised on the edge. Placing the burred edge on a leather buffing wheel will chip it away and give a smooth edge.
Sharpness Inspection - The sharpness of the knife is measured by applying a constant load on the knife to slice through a stack of paper. The number of sheets that are cut are be compared to a century-old gold standard.
Blade Shape Inspection - Using microscopes, the inspector assesses whether the blade edge has a suitable angle and shape for a true Gyuto.