Meet the knives that make the perfect starter set: the Milk Street Kitchin-kiji, a compact utility knife for “in-between” jobs; the Nakiri knife, designed for safe, fast vegetable prep and our hybrid-style Bunka, engineered with a chisel-like tip.
Milk Street Nakiri
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.
Milk Street Kitchin-kiji
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.
Milk Street Bunka
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.
