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.

Introducing 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.

Both large and small nakiris have their roles to play for effortless prep. The Small Nakiri excels at the little stuff that can make a big knife feel awkward and even dangerous—slicing garlic into paper-thin slices, mincing shallots or onion into tiny cubes, shaving radishes, slicing mushrooms, shredding fine herbs into a feathery garnish and more.

This isn’t just a shrunk-down version of our full-size Nakiri. It’s reengineered top to bottom for impeccable small-scale function. The blade is roughly 4.5 inches long (just a little longer than most paring knives), so it feels just right for all the usual prep. It’s tall though—1.75 inches—so that it has all the benefits of a big knife: Never bang your knuckles on the cutting board, chop through big veggies and scoop up foods like a bench scraper to dump into the pot. Of course, the tall blade also shields your fingers during chopping. Also, the blade shape is tapered to the tip and curved to make the smaller blade function as effectively as the large version for slicing. Our signature lock-in handle is slightly scaled down for the smaller blade but every bit as comfortable and secure, regardless of hand size.

Like the larger Nakiri, the blade is embossed with a nonstick file pattern that replicates the kurouchi (blacksmith) finish to traditional nakiris, so sliced ingredients fall right off. A gentle curve at the butt accommodates fingers when choking up tight for control, and the handle has been designed to provide a nonslip grip.

The typical bread knife tears its way through loaves and mashes tomatoes to pulp. So we spent months re-engineering the bread knife from the ground up, testing competitors’ knives to learn what we wanted and discarding what we didn’t. The result, the *Milk Street Tri-Edge Bread Knife*, perfectly handles it all, slicing easily through any style of bread, delicate pastries, overstuffed sandwiches and tough tomatoes. It's also the perfect knife for difficult tasks, like chopping nuts and chocolate, handling dried fruit, and cutting up large blocks of butter.

Once an essential tool of Japanese fisherman, the funayuki (literally “boat-going knife”), is designed as the original do-it-all knife for fish, meats and vegetables. The 6½-inch long, leaf-shaped blade is tall enough to safely chop through large amounts of ingredients at one time like a cleaver, yet it tapers quickly to a fine tip for precision tasks. The strongly arced blade and forward stance excels at cutting meats, though it minces and rock chops vegetables equally well. The curve extends the blade length for cleaner slicing in a compact package.

Every cook needs a big, burly knife for the tough stuff. A big chuck roast to turn into stew meat? A soccer-ball sized cabbage to shred for coleslaw? Chicken legs need splitting? Tasks like these make most knives feel puny and insignificant.

Sometimes, you just need a big knife for kitchen tasks, but they often feel heavy, clumsy and downright unsafe in the hand. Often, the blades are ultra-thick—for only brutish, heavy-duty tasks—or are designed with unique blade shapes, which require a learning curve to master. Or, they have stubby handles barely long enough to grip.

Enter the Milk Street Cleaver, an all-purpose knife designed to work equally well for vegetables and butchering big cuts of meat. At 7 inches long, 3 inches tall and less than half a pound, this tool is an inch shorter than the average cleaver for a lighter, more nimble experience. However, it maintains full height for shielding fingers during chopping and using as a bench scraper to scoop up and transfer prepped foods to the pot. And, at only 2 millimeters thick at the spine, this cleaver is as thin as possible to maintain stiffness, yet slices with little force.

Unlike most cleavers that feature a basic rectangular blade design, the Milk Street Cleaver boasts some distinctive design points. The blade arcs inward at the heel to allow for multiple grips, while keeping your fingers guarded and preserving the length of the blade. To feel and function like a smaller knife, the cutaway heel lets you choke up close and tight on the blade. Or slide your hand back on the handle for more clearance, leverage and power.

The blade’s edge differs as well. Compared to the typical cleaver’s perfectly straight blade edges, the Milk Street Cleaver gently curves tip to heel for a natural slicing and chopping motion. It’ll feel the same in use as your chef’s knife—but safer while requiring less effort!

The blade’s unique embossed file pattern creates a nonstick surface—air gets trapped between the food being cut and the blade, preventing foods from clinging. Food falls right off. And a full-sized, ergonomic handle, far longer than the stubby handles on most traditional Chinese-style cleavers, helps creates a neutral midpoint balance that feels more natural than the forward-leaning heft of most cleavers.

The Milk Street Bunka Knife is the turbocharged take on what an all-purpose knife can be. Similar in size to the more widely known santoku, the bunka’s nearly constant 6.75-inch blade width functions much like a nakiri, ideal for precise vegetable prep, safety (shields the fingers when slicing) and scooping up foods like a bench scraper into your mixing bowl or hot skillet. But unlike the squared-off tip of the nakiri, the bunka’s blade tapers into a chisel-like kiritsuke tip (translates as “slit open”), which allows for piercing cuts and fine detail work when prepping ingredients like meat. The nearly flat blade profile arcs subtly to the tip, meaning it can be used for rock chopping or mincing. You know those instances where you thought you sliced a pepper into thin strips and it all stuck together, like an accordion? Not a chance of that with the bunka. The mid-sized, premium German steel blade is also the perfect compromise in length. It’s long enough to cleanly slice proteins or span a whole cabbage, but short enough to always be in complete control without feeling unwieldy. And the ergonomic handle provides a comfortable grip regardless of your hand size. No more slipping and twisting when you really just want to hold tight. It’s a knife you can use for everything from peeling garlic and onions to chopping a precise brunoise and peeling the tough silverskin off a pork tenderloin, then slicing it into fine cutlets. If you’re confident with a razor-tipped chef’s knife and precision handling, the bunka is your answer.

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. The very thin blade, just 1.5 millimeters at the top, tapers down even thinner toward the end so it slices through even tough ingredients effortlessly without sticking. The broad blade shields your fingers when you chop and works as a bench scraper to transfer chopped veggies to the simmering pot. The blade’s heel gently curves to accommodate your fingers when choking up tight for control.

This is a limited edition, premium run of our tried-and-true Milk Street Nakiri knife. It features a high-end Japanese AUS8 steel blade specially treated with a nonstick “Tsuchime” hammered surface—foods slide right off—and a gorgeously grained cocobolo wood handle. And it comes with a custom saya, or knife guard, to keep your blade keen and protect it in storage. Consider it an heirloom-quality tool to pass on to the next generation.

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, stiff blade to be large enough that it won’t twist, and the larger handle fills the hand for a confident grip.

This is a Limited edition, premium run of our tried-and-true Milk Street Kitchin-kiji knife. It features a high-end Japanese AUS 8 steel blade specially forged with a non-stick “Tsuchime” hammered surface and a gorgeously grained, ultra-durable cocobolo wood handle.And it comes with a custom saya, or knife guard, to keep your blade keen and protect it in storage. Consider it an heirloom-quality tool to use and pass on to the next generation of cooks in your family.

Traditional European chef’s knives are big, heavy and awkward because they evolved from Middle Ages daggers, which were designed for personal defense, not kitchen work. There’s good reason its so hard to prep a tidy dice.

Our solution was to look toward Japan, where there’s a long history—and huge range—of smartly designed kitchen knives grown out of swordmaking. By design, Japanese knives are thinner, lighter and task specific—separate blade styles, for meats, fish, vegetables, etc. Based on these knives and our own cooking experience, we developed an all-new modern chef’s knife that’s remarkably easy to use. It’s the Milk Street Kitchin-to, part cleaver and part vegetable knife. It can handle small jobs such as slicing garlic but also makes heavy-duty jobs a breeze. With the Kitchin-to, you let the knife do the work!

This is a Limited edition, premium run of our tried-and-true Milk Street Kitchin-To knife. It features a high-end Japanese AUS8 steel blade specially treated with a non-stick “Tsuchime” hammered surface and a gorgeously grained cocobolo wood handle. And it comes with a custom saya, or knife guard, to keep your blade keen and protect it in storage. Consider it an heirloom-quality tool to pass on to the next generation.

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.

Standard chef’s knives are big and heavy because they evolved from Middle Ages daggers, which were designed for defense. It stabs fine, but how well does it handle standard kitchen tasks such as chopping and slicing? Our solution was to look toward Japan, where knives are based on the design of the featherweight samurai sword. Japanese knives are thinner and designed for the task at hand. Based on these lighter, safer knives and our own cooking experience, we developed an all-new modern chef’s knife that’s remarkably easy to use. It’s the Milk Street Kitchin-to, part Chinese cleaver and part vegetable knife. It can handle small jobs such as slicing garlic but also makes heavy-duty jobs a breeze. With the Kitchin-to, you let the knife do the work!

LIMITED INVENTORY

In Japan, were there’s a knife shape designed for every cutting task. Our favorite design is the nakiri, a vegetable knife with an ultrathin blade and a shape reminiscent of a cleaver. More lightweight than a clumsy chef’s knife, the blade is thin and sharp, gliding through vegetables like butter. It makes food prep a pleasure while also being safe and efficient. Since 90% of cooking is preparation, you will find that the Milk Street nakiri saves you time in the kitchen because it is designed specifically for slicing, cutting and chopping vegetables.

A safer and more effective all-purpose kitchen knife than the triangular European-style chef’s knife, the Japanese santoku is the ultimate kitchen tool for the home cook. Our exclusive Milk Street-designed santoku (which translates as “3 virtues”) features a 7-inch blade that is tall at the heel and retains a nearly continuous height to the tip thanks to the rounded sheepsfoot tip. That means there’s plenty of blade steel to protect your fingers when chopping, and it also works well for scooping up chopped vegetables to transfer to the skillet or mixing bowl.

The blade features a pronounced curve to the belly for easy rock chopping and mincing, while the pointed tip makes it all-purpose enough for prepping meats or mincing onions, garlic and shallots.

The comfortable “lock in” ergonomic handle, fashioned from durable matte-finished polymer, is broad at the top and narrows to the bottom for a palm-filling grip. It doesn’t twist or turn during heavy-duty use. The handle tapers towards the blade for a comfortable transition between handle and blade—a benefit that few knives take into account.

The heel of the bolsterless blade is scalloped, which makes the knife comfortable to choke up on for a controlled, confident pinch grip. And a patch of file pattern embossed into the blade adds even more grip between the thumb and pointer finger.

When traveling in Istanbul, Chris Kimball saw chefs using stunning “zirh” knives as comfortably as if they were using a chef’s knife to efficiently mince meat and vegetables. This impressive Turkish knife gets even the most painstaking jobs done in a flash, thanks to its large, curved blade. Use the 3-inch deep blade, which looks like a saber, by rocking it back and forth through a mound of vegetables, meat or herbs. The rocking motion is Turkish chefs’ secret for perfectly uniform chopped meat, peppers and onions for kebabs, with just the right texture—and much less effort.

With three unique blade edges, this smartly-designed serrated knife combines the function of two knives in one—slicing through any and all loaves with ease. The blade is 9 inches, so long enough to cut the largest loaf cleanly without sawing back and forth. And the tapered blade features a gently curved belly to facilitate clean slicing. A 2-inch section of wide wave serrations located closer to the tip of the knife dives in and saws through a crunchy, rustic outer crust, while the smaller teeth cleanly slice through the inner crumb. It’s also ideal for delicate foods like soft sandwich breads and juicy tomatoes. The knife features a small length of straight blade at the tip to pierce through tough crusts, tomato skins or melon rinds. Plus, the handle is specifically designed for a comfortable grip, with a slight curve to it.

Featured in the New York Times Front Burner - with three unique blade edges, this compact version of the popular Seseragi bread knife from Suncraft combines the function of two knives in one—slicing through everything from delicate fruit to sturdy loaves with ease. The blade is 5.5 inches, perfect for smaller tasks that larger serrated knives are too clunky for, like slicing through bagels, tomatoes, pastries and salumi. The knife’s unique “wavy” serrations, with two different sized teeth, slice cleanly through everything: the larger waves make easy work of crunchy, rustic outer crusts, while the tighter, smaller teeth slip through the inner crumb (or delicate foods like soft sandwich breads or juicy fruit). The knife features a small length of straight blade at the tip to slice through stubborn areas, like a bit of bread crust or melon rind that just needs one last pass to break through. Plus, the handle is specifically designed for a comfortable grip, with a slight curve to it so it fills the palm. And the blade comes with a handy plastic sheath for safe storage, so it protects the tip and your hands when reaching into a cluttered drawer.

This hard-to-find spreading knife from Japan is unlike any tool we’ve encountered before—imagine a slim spatula with a sharp serrated cutting edge, that spreads and cuts with equal ease. The carefully crafted blade is so thin and flexible, it out-bends even metal spatulas. The bendy blade scoops and spreads butter and spreads, and its micro-serrations cut tomatoes, fruit, bread, cheese or sandwiches cleanly without squashing—it’s your new table hero.

The handle is made of Japanese Zelkova wood and fits comfortably in the hand. The little bird emblazoned on the blade is a nod to the knife’s hometown, Tsubame (it translates to “swallow” in Japanese), an area famous for the craftsmanship of stainless steel tools.

Pry open oysters like a pro with this stainless steel oyster knife from triangle Tools. This professional-grade knife beat out our prior favorite—its solid blade and ergonomic handle makes opening oysters easy, fast and safe. Both the blade and handle are crafted from a single piece of steel, for extra sturdiness; the slim, hand-sharpened blade is slanted slightly to one side, which makes it easier to slip into tight oyster hinges. We tried this on oysters of all different shapes and sizes; it worked seamlessly across the board, effortlessly opening small, large and delicate, breakable shells.