Japanese Knives

Knives from Seki, the city in Gifu that has been the centre of Japanese blade making for centuries. The range is built around Kai's Seki Magoroku line: single-bevel deba and yanagiba for fish, nakiri for vegetables, and double-bevel santoku, chef and paring knives for everything else.

Each listing gives the blade length, the steel and its hardness, and which hand a single-bevel blade is ground for — there is a left-handed deba for exactly that reason. Japanese blades are harder and thinner than most European knives, so they hold a finer edge, but they want hand washing, immediate drying and a whetstone rather than a sharpening steel.