Ultimate Knife Guide

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.

$79.95

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.

Specifications
Dimensions: 3.5 inch blade
Materials: 1.4116 German Steel, Polymer
UPC: 855646008916

Care:
The knife must be washed by hand and dried after each use immediately to ensure no staining occurs. Do not put in dishwasher.
To maintain the blade's edge, sharpen the Kitchin-kiji at a 17 degree angle.

$59.95

When a chef’s knife is too big, and a paring knife is too small, the Milk Street Kitchin-tan is the perfect pinch hitter. We borrowed elements from our favorite Western- and Japanese-style knives to create this all-purpose utility knife. From making sandwiches to chopping herbs, dicing shallots and cutting fruit, this 5½-inch blade will become the go-to knife for all of your between jobs. It has a comfortable grip, cuts like a dream and has a curved sheepsfoot tip, which makes the knife safer to use.

$69.95

Adding a maintenance-free serrated edge to the proven shape and functionality of the Kitchin-tan, this knife’s grippy teeth slice though anything: fibrous asparagus stalks, thick-skinned squash, rubbery citrus peels or a gooey wedge of Brie. And those razor-sharp teeth also work for detail work, like slicing chicken breasts, butterflying shrimp or chopping soft fruit.

$34.97

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.

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. 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.

$89.95

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.

$99.95

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!

$89.95

The Milk Street Cleaver is 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.

$79.95