People that are new to Japanese knives and even some more experienced users often have questions about what makes Japanese different and how the various knife shapes can be used.  What follows is our simple guide on the most common knife types and their specific uses.

Gyutou / Chef’s Knife

Gyutou are the Japanese equivalent of a typical European chef’s knife. They are the ideal all-purpose kitchen knives and can be used for most tasks.  Japanese gyutou are typically lighter and thinner than a European knife, are made out of a harder steel and as a result, hold a better edge.  The design features nothing to obstruct the edge of the handle end of the blade, so it can be sharpened and thus used entirely.  The word gyutou in Japanese means ‘beef knife’.

See all Gyutou Knives

Santoku /  Multipurpose

Santoku, which means ‘three virtues’ in Japanese, is an all-purpose knife with a taller blade profile than a gyutou.  Its three virtues are the knife’s ability to cut fish, meat and vegetables.   Santoku have a flatter ‘belly’ than gyutou and can be used comfortably with an up and down chopping motion rather than a ‘rocking’ type cut.

See all Santoku Knives

Sujihiki / Slicer

Sujihiki knives are the equivalent to a European slicer with a few differences.  First, the blade is typically thinner and made out of a harder steel, allowing for better edge retention.  Additionally, the bevel on the blade is sharpened at a steeper angle, allowing for a more precise cut.  Sujihiki can be used for filleting, carving and general slicing purposes.

See all Sujihiki Knives

Petty / Paring

Petty knives are small utility or paring knives that are ideal for small, delicate work that a chef’s knife can’t handle such as delicate produce and herbs, small fruits and vegetables.

See all Petty Knives

Honesuki / Boning

A honesuki is a Japanese boning knife and differs from its Western version, in that it has a triangular shape and a stiff blade with very little flex.  The honesuki works incredibly well for deboning poultry and cutting through soft joints.  Typically it has an asymmetrical edge, although 50/50 balanced versions (not favoring left of right handed use) exist.  Due to its shape and height, the honesuki can also function nicely as a utility or petty style of knife.

See all Honesuki Knives

Hankotsu / Boning

A hankotsu is a Japanese boning knife and differs from a Western boning knife in its shape. It has a thick spine and durable blade with none of the ‘flex’ found in a Western boning knife.  Originally created to debone hanging meats, it is excellent at cleaning loins, but can function as a petty or utility knife on the fly.

See all Hankotsu Knives

Nakiri / Vegetable Knife

Nakiri knives are the double edged Western style equivalent of a single edged Japanese usuba knife.  Thanks to their straight blade, nakiri are ideal for julienne, brunoise, allumette and other precision knife cuts for vegetables.  Also a great tool for cutting into very hard skinned produce like pumpkins and squash.

See all Nakiri Knives

Yo-deba / Butchery

Yo-deba knives are heavy, durable knives with a thick spine, which are used for fish and meat butchery.  They typically feature a 50/50 balance so they are appropriate for both left and right-handed use.

Shop all Yo-deba Knives

Yanagi / Slicer

Yanagi are single-edged traditional Japanese knives used in a long drawing motion to cut precise slices of sushi, sashimi and crudo. Their single-edge means they are able get incredibly sharp.

See all Yanagi Knives

Takobiki / Slicer

Takobiki are a variation of a yanagi and originated in the Kanto (Tokyo) region of Japan. They are also single-edged allowing for an incredibly sharp edge and are used for slicing sushi, sashimi and crudo.  It is rumored that the blunt tip end was favored by sushi chefs in Tokyo because tight spaces meant they had less distance between themselves and customer, so the flat edge tip made for a safer experience.

See all Takobiki Knives

Deba / Butchery

Deba are traditional single bevel Japanese knives with a thick spine and a lot of weight.  They are used for fish butchery, filleting and can also be used on poultry.  They are available in a range of sizes depending on the size of the fish or animal that is broken down.

Shop all Deba Knives

Usuba / Vegetable Knife

The usuba is a traditional Japanese vegetable knife with a single edge.  Single-edged knives are able to get incredibly sharp and are favored for precise vegetable work.  The Kamagata Usuba, pictured above has a curved tip, which is a regional variation from Osaka.

See all Usuba Knives

Kiritsuke / Slicer

The kiritsuke is a traditional Japanese knife with an angled tip that can be used as either a sashimi knife or as an all-purpose knife.  In restaurant kitchens in Japan, this knife is traditionally used by the Executive Chef only and cannot be used by other cooks.

See all Kiritsuke Knives

Pankiri / Bread Knife

Pankiri are designed and used for slicing bread and baked goods.  The ridged teeth are designed specifically for this purpose and can cut through hard crusts as well as delicate items without crushing.

See all Pankiri Knives

This video is the first part of a series where we demonstrate the various sharpening techniques and tools essential to properly maintain your knives. In this video,  we demonstrate the correct technique for sharpening a 70/30 edged Japanese knife.

We had the pleasure of sitting down with Chef Dale Talde recently to talk about his approach to cooking, his favorite places to eat in New York and beyond and advice for cooks just starting out.

How did you get into cooking initially?
By being around food and seeing my mom cook. My mom grew her own vegetables, my dad fished and hunted and I used to watch them cook all the time. I loved watching cooking shows and I think watching all that go down at a young age was my inspiration.

Who have your mentors been over the years?
My first mentor was Jeff Felsinthall at Vong. He’s a culinary instructor now, but he worked at Charlie Trotter’s as a sous chef. He opened Charlies’ back in the day and he was just militant in his approach. And at first, when you are younger and you don’t realize what he’s doing, it comes off that he’s picking on you or you think ‘what’s this guy’s problem?’. But then you go into another kitchen and I saw he was really laying down the foundation for me learning to cook.

Probably my biggest culinary mentor is Carrie Nahabedian at Naha. She just opened a new restaurant Brindille. She’s just a really close culinary chef friend. She has helped me out through thick and thin and her approach is very seasonal. She was the first person who taught me what locavore is, with using what’s around and what’s seasonal and embracing that and having a relationship with farmers, with your fish guy and your meat guy. I think the best thing she taught me is how to portion foie gras. We used to portion it to order and I used to portion and have a scale next to me. And, I guess it’s not the most economical way, but I would weigh out a 2 and ½ ounce portion and she would say, ‘Dale, cut a piece of foie gras that you would want to eat. And, I said all right and I cut this steak of a piece of foie. And I seared it, and she taught me how to cook it. Without her and her cousin Michael, who own Naha and Brindille, I wouldn’t be the chef that I am today.

Other mentors are Chef Masaharu Morimoto and Stephen Starr. Stephen’s not a chef, but Stephen taught me how to look at food and how to eat food and how to look at it from a customer’s perspective. How are your diners going to perceive what you are doing? That’s important to me.

How would you describe your personal culinary style?
I would say we do food that’s pretty fun. We have three restaurants and we just try to have fun with the food. It’s a gastro pub at Thistle, it’s Asian American here at Talde. It’s something that is familiar but has an unexpected surprise to it. That’s what we do.

How was the concept at Talde born?
The concept was a really funny surprise. It was like hey this is what we want to do, we don’t know how to explain it. And one of our close friends was our PR guy at the time, Khong, and he said let’s look at who and what you are. I’m a Filipino-American but I don’t do Filipino food, I do roundabout Asian food. And he said, why don’t we call it Asian American. It describes who you are and this restaurant is who you are, so why don’t we call it that. I was very cautious about it. I mean who wants to go out for Asian American food? But, it was a new term and you grouped it as Asian and it worked and it took off.

What were some of the challenges in opening Talde?
Trying to get a staff together, trying to hire a staff, trying to find what sells, what doesn’t. Really making food that is good enough for the neighborhood, because we are trying to be a neighborhood restaurant. Fortunately, it’s a neighborhood of savvy diners and people who have money to spend on food and really know what good food is. That was kind of our first challenge. Is this food good enough? Is what we’re doing good enough? And you know some of the first dishes like the wedge salad with Chinese bacon and Sriracha. We made that for us, we didn’t make that for the diners. It was selfish, but the neighborhood said if I wanted a wedge salad, I would go to a diner. Why would I need to come here? I just waited an hour and a half for a table; I’m not going to order a wedge salad.

What’s the inspiration for creating new dishes?
New dishes for us is our daily lives. Walking the streets of New York City you get so inspired. It’s the smell of a halal cart at 3am when you’ve had too much to drink or the sounds, smells and sights in Chinatown as you get off the D Train at Grand. I mean that’s life. You walk the streets of New York City and I’m telling you if you aren’t inspired then you need to re-evaluate life and your soul. Even in our sleepy little neighborhood of Park Slope in the afternoon, you walk twenty blocks down into Sunset Park and you might as well be in Mexico. And then you walk over and you’re in Chinatown in Brooklyn. You go to Brighton Beach and you might as well be in Russia. The inspiration is so ridiculous here.

 
What ingredients and techniques are you focused on right now?
Right now, we’re really into putting things on sticks. That’s my favorite. Anything on sticks. Technique-wise we love the idea of putting things on a stick and charring them. It’s so the antithesis of where modernist cooking is right now – cooking something for 3 and a half days at low temperature. I mean, give me fire and I will cook. I like the idea that it can be so ballsy hot. Let’s get that wok as hot as it can get and let’s char the shit out of it and let’s see what happens. Put some ‘wok hey’ on it, put some fire on it and let it go. It’s so caveman, it’s back to the original way of cooking to just have fire.

What’s your essential cooking tool?
A Kunz spoon, a wok spoon and a Nenox and I’m ready to go.

With your experience on Top Chef , how do you see food television as an influence on diners and the industry?
It’s been a great influence for diners. It gives a great insight into the process and what it is that cooks sometimes have to do. It’s done amazing things for our culinary world. It’s opened us up to a whole new spectrum of people and it’s given a ridiculous pop fan base of people who want to come to your restaurant to check out your food. It’s a little dangerous for culinary professionals though. They might think that they will be famous at some point, that they’re going to reach for stardom as opposed to learning a trade. That’s one thing that is a downside. For every upside, there’s a downside. A lot of these cooks come out of school and they want to be famous and I think why don’t you just learn how to cook first. Learn your trade, learn your craft. It’s like guys who make knives. Someone taught them how to bend, heat, cut, work with metal. If you don’t learn how to do that, how can you make a beautiful piece of cutlery that looks like a piece of art? You can’t. So, for us, if you don’t know how to cook a steak to medium rare, how are you going to create a dish based on a steak if it’s not cooked properly? Everything else is garbage. Every sauce, every foam, every garnish, every oil is garbage unless that steak is cooked properly.

Where do you like to eat?
Right now, I love to eat at Piquat’s Pizza in Chicago. It’s kind of like a foccacia bread and then they burn the crust to get it nice and charred.

I love this place in San Sebastian, Spain that does simple grilled seafood. The deft hand that someone has who takes raw sardines and makes a parsley oil and putting just a little bit of salt on it because they know the sardines are salty naturally. To them, it might seem simple but it’s complex. It’s complex because you didn’t have to do anything to it. It’s not hiding. This is what it is. We have the best fish and we’re putting it on a plate.

In New York, I love a good steak. I love Perla. Michael Toscano’s pasta is ridiculous; he’s a magician. We’re either going to eat there tonight or at Minetta Tavern.
 

Do you have any advice for young cooks?
Put your head down and cook. Life is harder than just cooking, but if you want to be great at this job just put your head down and cook. Love what you do. Love every aspect of what you do. Love it when it sucks. When you love restaurants so much and you love cooking so much that you love it when it sucks, then you know it’s the industry for you. When the oven’s broken and you just burned your hand and there’s no dishwasher and you still love coming to work, it’s the job for you. It’s a passion. Build a passion for your job because a lot of what we do isn’t pleasant.