Knives That Will Change The Way You Cook

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Milk Street: Nakiri

Designed for safe, fast vegetable prep

What if we told you there is a Japanese knife specifically designed for vegetable prep that will make your cooking safer, easier and faster? It is vastly better than the all-purpose European chef’s knife, which is clunky, heavy and too thick to precisely slice and dice onions, cut carrots into perfect coins or reduce chard into feathery ribbons. The solution is the Milk Street Nakiri. It’s light, thin and sharp, with a design that resembles a mini cleaver—2 inches deep with a squared-off tip. A very thin blade, just 1.6 millimeters at the top, tapers down even thinner toward the end so it slices through even tough ingredients effortlessly without bending. The broad blade shields your fingers when you chop and works as a bench scraper to transfer chopped veggies to the simmering pot. With the help of veteran industrial designer David Lewin, we added a few special touches. The blade is embossed with a nonstick file pattern that replicates the kourochi (blacksmith) or tshuchime (pear skin) finish to traditional nakiris, so sliced ingredients fall right off. A gentle curve accommodates fingers when choking up tight for control, and the handle has been designed to provide a nonslip grip.

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Milk Street: Small Nakiri

Like its big brother, the Small Nakiri is the perfect tool for vegetable prep

The Milk Street Small Nakiri, a companion piece to our full-scale vegetable knife. In Japan, nakiris come in all shapes and sizes to accommodate a variety of hands and chopping styles. Small nakiris, called ko-nakiri, are perfect for those who prefer using small knives or for the cook who wants a reliable knife that stands in for a paring knife or prep tool. It’s every bit as essential a kitchen tool as the full-scale knife. Like its big brother, the Small Nakiri is the perfect tool for vegetable prep. Super thin, lightweight and razor sharp, it’s a nimble knife for all your slicing and dicing. It’ll precisely slice razor-thin ribbons of shallots, carrot coins or garlic cloves and turn a fluffy pile of parsley into confetti.

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Milk Street: Serrated Kitchin-tan™

The serrated Japanese utility knife

The serrated Milk Street Kitchin-tan utility knife will be the most useful knife in your kitchen. It’s a pinch-hitting wonder that spans the gap between a chef’s knife and paring knife. It’s long enough for many big tasks, but small enough for detail work. We’ve taken the proven shape and functionality of the Kitchin-tan and added a maintenance-free serrated edge. The grippy razor teeth effortlessly slice though anything and everything: thick-skinned tomatoes and peppers, fibrous broccoli stems and asparagus stalks, rubbery citrus peels. You’ll be amazed at how often you use this knife.

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Milk Street: Kitchin-kiji

All-purpose utility knife that every home cook needs

The one kind of knife missing from most Western kitchens is one of the most used in Japan—a midsized, multipurpose utility knife bigger and stronger than a paring knife but smaller and more manageable than a chef’s knife. Why Western cooks typically don’t have such a knife is beyond us, so we took months to design our own. The result is the Kitchin-kiji—the ultimate all-purpose utility knife that will speed up your prep. It’s perfect for all the “in-between” jobs, small enough for detailed handwork like slicing garlic and shallots, trimming mushrooms or cutting fruit. Plus, we designed it with a broad blade to be large enough that it won’t twist, and the larger handle fills the hand for a confident grip.

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Milk Street: Kitchin-Ki Paring Knife

A complete reinvention of the paring knife

The Milk Street Kitchin-ki is a complete reinvention of the paring knife. It matches an ultra-short—just 2.75 inches—fine-tipped blade with an oversized ergonomic handle for a knife that provides complete control over all the small tasks. The tapered handle and textured patch on the top of the blade provide a safe grip regardless of how you hold it. Most European knife-makers haven’t altered their designs in generations, but we looked outside that tradition for inspiration. The Kitchin-ki’s unique blade design takes cues from sources as diverse as Japanese peeling knives, antique utility knives collected from trunk sales, stubby woodcarving blades and those work-worn kitchen knives your grandmother uses—shrunk down from generations of meals and maintenance.