The 10 Best Japanese Knives of 2024, Tested and Reviewed

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Food & Wine / Russell Kilgore

When it comes to kitchen knives, Japanese blades are often considered some of the best in the world. Many of Japan's most famous knife brands are centuries old and have been making their blades the same way for hundreds of years. One major difference that sets Japanese knives apart from Western-style blades is the blade material: They often use carbon steel, which is harder than other steel alloys and can be made extra-sharp. But it's also more brittle; carbon steel blades are apt to chip if misused. Japanese knives come in many specialized shapes, from multipurpose chef's knives to highly specific tools crafted for individual tasks. (There's even a Japanese butter knife that solves the problem of unspreadable cold butter.)

Another thing that sets many Japanese (and Japanese-style) knives apart is that they are single-bevel, meaning they are only sharpened on one side, with a flat edge on the other. This gives the blade a sharper edge and allows the knife to precisely cut paper-thin slices of meat and vegetables. But it also means that right-handed and left-handed cooks need separate blades sharpened on opposite sides for the most effective cutting.

Knife expert Michael Behn of Moshi Moshi Knife Sharpening (who also lent his expertise when we tested the best paring knives) could wax poetic about Japanese knives for hours, and he’s a treasure trove of information. After considering the results of dozens of our own tests and considering Behn's favorites, we assembled this list of recommendations to the top Japanese knives in every category. Read on for our best picks for razor-sharp Japanese knives any chef would be proud to own.

An incredible all-around knife, this blade is easy to wield, balanced, lightweight, and well-suited to most tasks.

It didn't cut delicate herbs quite so cleanly.

The super-popular Mac brand was an overall favorite in our chef's knife test, which is no small feat. It did the best at slicing through tomato skin without smushing. “The Mac has a very nice evenly balanced feel to it between the weight of the blade and the handle,” says Hunter Lewis, editor-in-chief of Food & Wine. “It feels solid and good in my hand, and it has a good weight and balance that makes it an all-purpose chef's knife for people with medium to large hands.”

This general chef's knife is designed for a multitude of purposes and makes most ingredients easy to work with, thanks to the hollowed notches of the blade, which helps release stickier items. The narrow blade is lightweight and easy to control, even at the tip. The Pakkawood handle doesn’t slip in hand, which makes all cutting with the alloy steel blade feel more secure. Its only negative in testing was that it couldn't make smooth cuts in delicate herbs, crushing basil somewhat.

Blade Length: 8 inches | Blade Material: Stainless steel | Total Length: 12.63 inches | Handle Material: Pakkawood

The long, thin blade makes this knife useful for sushi and more, and the comfortable handle makes it easy to hold.

It's expensive, especially for a knife you might not use every day.

There are numerous Japanese knives made for slicing sushi and sashimi, although most home cooks won't need more than one. We like the sujihiki shape for home use because it can precisely slice fish but is also long enough to make an excellent general carving knife. The hammered finish on the blade helps prevent food from sticking, and the Western-style handle lends an ergonomic grip.

“If we don't mention Kikuichi, we're definitely doing something wrong here,” says Behn. “They started making knives 700 years ago. I love them so much because of that storied history. They made samurai swords until the Meiji Restoration, when samurai swords were illegal. So they just switched and started making kitchen knives. The fit and finish are always immaculate, and they are easily one of my favorite brands with so many options from $85 all the way up to $600.” This knife sits about in the middle of that range, making it awfully expensive in the overall scheme of kitchen knives.

Blade Length: 9.5 inches | Blade Material: Alloy steel | Handle Material: Eco-wood

This knife held its edge during testing and is versatile enough for many types of tasks.

The thin blade isn't well-suited for tough items like bones or hard vegetables, and the handle isn't the most comfortable.

A gyuto is one of the most versatile knives because it can be used with vegetables, fish, and meat. It resembles a Western-style chef's knife, with a rounded blade that lets you rock the knife while chopping, but it's a bit longer and not as tall. Tojiro is an excellent and reliable brand, and its DP Gyuto performed so well in our tests that it ranked well among all types of Japanese knives. We sliced through a piece of paper when it was out of the box, then again after all rounds of testing, and we didn't notice any decrease in sharpness.

“Pretty much every line cook who has bought their first Japanese knife bought a Tojiro DP Gyuto, and they're all super stoked to have it,” says Behn. “I’ve gifted many to chefs over the years.” When testing the DP, we found it cut through tomatoes like butter with no snagging of the skin or mushing the juice out. However, this thin blade isn't the best for large-scale butchery or hacking through bones. The only thing that kept this knife from topping our chef's knife list was the handle design; especially when working through tough items like butternut squash, the handle was uncomfortable and caused some hand irritations.

Blade Length: 8.2 inches | Blade Material: Cobalt alloy steel core, stainless steel exterior | Total Length: 14 inches | Handle Material: Plastic

This knife is sturdy and versatile, and its shorter length makes it easy to control.

It's quite expensive.

The deba has a robust and weighty blade intended for butchering fish and shellfish. It's powerful enough to cut through small bones and cartilage to remove tails and heads, but the short length and pointed tip give you precision control to cut fillets or remove skin.

The same characteristics make a deba suitable for most other types of meat, too: It can break down a chicken, separate pork chops from a whole loin, or even debone a leg of lamb. Yoshihiro's version is pretty pricey, especially for such a short knife, but we recommend you splurge on a deba — sturdiness is crucial for safety.

Blade Length: 6.5 inches | Blade Material: Carbon steel | Handle Material: Rosewood

This sharp knife cut through soft items without tearing, and we loved its smart design.

The blade can rust if not cared for properly.

The best bread knives use serrated blades to make easy work of slicing even the softest bread without squashing the crumb, and this Japanese one cuts wonderfully while looking lovely. It's up to the task of both delicate milk bread and tomatoes for summer sandwiches. After our testing, we awarded the Miyabi Kaizen our best design pick because of its wavy-patterned carbon steel blade and comfy handle, not to mention its sharp serrations.

Miyabi’s knives are exceptional in many ways, which is why Behn calls the brand his favorite. We like this knife for more than its looks, though. It is incredibly sharp, thanks to how it’s honed using the historic honbazuke method. Just make sure you keep it very dry before storing it so the blade doesn’t rust.

Blade Length: 9.5 inches | Blade Material: Stainless steel | Total Length: 14.41 inches | Handle Material: Micarta

We loved how well this knife performed on delicate and precise cuts and felt it was extremely balanced.

The handle is small and thin, which can sometimes be challenging to grip.

This Global knife doesn't have a traditional handle, exactly. The entire body is made of steel, and the hollow handle section is filled with sand for the perfect balance. During testing, we noticed it was incredibly lightweight and precisely balanced due to its unique design. The trade-off is that the sleek handle can be slippery when wet, given its low profile and streamlined design.

The edge is sharpened to a narrower angle than many of the other chef's knives we tested, giving it a thinner, sharper blade. This knife dominated all of our soft-food tests during testing, especially delicate work like tomatoes, herbs, and garlic. It gave us the finest chiffonade of basil and was easy to wield for ultra-precise tasks.

Blade Length: 8 inches | Blade Material: Stainless steel | Total Length: 13 inches | Handle Material: Stainless steel

This knife was razor-sharp out of the box and performed well in all tests.

It dulled rather quickly in testing and will need regular maintenance.

Shun is one of the most popular knife brands among professional chefs, and given its performance in our tests, it's easy to see why. There was no test this knife didn't ace; it sliced through a tomato like butter and easily sailed through tender herbs without tearing or bruising. It even got through dense sweet potato better than many other knives in that round of testing.

We were impressed with how sharp this knife was out of the box, but after our slicing tests, we noticed the blade seemed a bit duller. To maintain the edge, we'd recommend picking up a whetstone and keeping on a regular sharpening schedule.

Blade Length: 8 inches | Blade Material: Damascus steel | Total Length: 14 inches | Handle Material: Pakkawood

The unique blade size and shape make this knife perfect for tough meat butchery as well as precise filleting.

The single-bevel edge is difficult to maintain and only usable by right-handed cooks.

This Mac model was one of our favorite boning knives for its clever design, with a blade that's wide at the bolster but tapers to a very narrow tip. The extra weight of the handle means it can easily snap through bones, joints, and cartilage toward the base of the knife, while the thin end and sharp point give it the precision necessary for filleting fish and cutting paper-thin slices of meat. Mac doesn't call it this, but the shape is similar to a honesuki knife, which is designed for butchering poultry.

The ultra-hard steel has molybdenum in the recipe, meaning the edge is less prone to degradation, and the blade will keep its sharpness longer. This is especially helpful because this knife is single-bevel, which can be hard to sharpen at home. This also means this knife isn't suitable for left-handed cooks.

Blade Length: 6 inches | Blade Material: Alloy steel | Handle Material: Pakkawood

This knife felt well-balanced, and the sharp blade produced smooth cuts.

Compared to other nakiri knives, this one is on the heavier side.

Forged in Seki, Japan, a city known for knife fabrication, Made In's nakiri has 66 layers of high-carbon steel. The result is an impossibly sharp and impressively hard blade. Like all nakiri knives, the squared-off blade shape makes this knife ideal for up-and-down chopping rather than the rocking technique used for Western-style knives. This gives you more leverage and power in the knife's handle, so working through hard vegetables like sweet potatoes or winter squash is much easier and sturdier.

In our nakiri test, the Made In was one of the heavier knives even thought it fell in the mid-range for length. It's well-balanced but feels heftier than other knives of the same size. The razor-sharp blade sailed through a raw chicken breast with just two slices. This knife gave very smooth and sharp cuts — no sawing or tearing here! It sliced through a bell pepper reasonably well but didn't give us a perfect slice on the skin.

Blade Length: 6.6 inches | Blade Material: Damascus steel | Total Length: 11.75 inches | Handle Material: Polymer

The ultra-sharp blade made this knife easy to use, and it excelled at cutting tougher items.

We had some trouble getting a smooth cut on soft cheese.

Made In recently released a trio of Damascus steel Japanese knives, and both the nakiri and santoku scored at the top of our tests. This knife has the same construction as the nakiri above, with 66 layers of high-carbon steel and a razor-sharp blade. The santoku has a slightly more rounded blade than the nakiri to use a rocking motion, and it's durable and versatile. This knife is just as at-home slicing and dicing veggies as it is breaking down cuts of meat.

During testing, we felt that this knife was a bit heavier than the other santoku knives we tested, even though it has a slightly shorter blade. The incredibly sharp blade made quick work of all our tests; it was very easy to use. It required very little force to cut through a potato and had no trouble making even cubes of meat.

We had almost no complaints about this knife. The only category where it struggled was with slicing mozzarella: It needed more push to get through the cheese and didn't make as smooth a cut as others.

Blade Length: 6.6 inches | Blade Material: Damascus steel | Total Length: 13.75 inches | Handle Material: Polymer

The Mac Knife 8-Inch Hollow Edge Chef's Knife is our favorite everyday knife for its versatility and ease of use. For the professional experience, we like the Shun 8-Inch Chef's Knife for its razor-sharp blade and outstanding performance across a multitude of tests.

The hardness of steel matters when it comes to blades, especially Japanese-style blades. Most knives are graded using the industry standard for hardness, known as the Rockwell Hardness Scale. The lower a blade’s Rockwell rating, the softer it is, and the more easily it will get dull. Japanese knives generally have a rating between 55 and 62, making them harder and stronger than most Western-style knives. “I'm looking for nice hard Japanese steel and good steel, too. It’s metallurgically sound on the inside and tempered harder,” says Behn.

Since Japanese steel is harder, it will break before it bends, which is why some brands are prone to chipping. The hardness does help with edge retention; Japanese-style knives tend to need sharpening less often than the soft metal of Western-style knives. If you're not clumsy in the kitchen and want to go longer between sharpenings, look for a harder blade. A slightly softer metal may suit you better if you don't mind a little extra work or have been known to knock a thing or two off the counter.

Most Japanese blades have a finished or unfinished wooden handle. They are traditionally octagonal, d-shaped, or oval-shaped for optimal grip. Some brands, like Global, have metal handles that are easier to maintain — unfinished wood needs to be oiled occasionally to avoid drying out. If you are butchering fatty meat, though, metal handles can become more slippery than their wooden counterparts.

Another popular handle material is a composite of wood or other natural materials with resin to create a smooth, durable surface with a distinctive look. Pakkawood and Micarta are two popular composite brands used in Japanese knife handles.

“It's almost a disservice to say any Japanese brand is low-maintenance. You can't just put them gently in the sink and leave them with the water,” says Behn. Higher-carbon steel rusts more easily than stainless and needs to be dried off immediately after cleaning. Behn even recommends using hot water when you wash your knives because the residual heat helps dry any moisture left on the blade. He also suggests oiling your handles every six months or so.

Though they're known for keeping their edge longer than other knives, Japanese knives will eventually need to be sharpened. This is easy enough to handle at home with a double-bevel knife, but it's probably best to have a professional resharpen a single-bevel knife to retain its proper shape.

Thankfully, people like Behn and other knife sharpening services are happy to take care of that for you. There may be an option near you, and there are also online services that let you ship knives off for a full luxury treatment.

Japanese knives come ar different price levels but are generally on the expensive side overall. Behn says spending more on an heirloom blade is always a good idea if you can. “If you're trying to buy a knife, you're gonna pass it down to the kids. And $350 doesn't seem like a big deal for something you're going to own and use every day for 50 years. That's typically how I break it down. You're gonna use this thing every day.“ Several of our picks hover in the $100 to $150 range, which is on par with similar quality Western-style chef's knives.

Testing knives is an expansive, ongoing group effort. We're constantly testing and retesting knives of all varieties, with made Japanese-made blades included in our evaluations of chef's knives, boning knives, bread knives, and more. Over several years, we've tested more than 70 Japanese knives in a mix of shapes and styles.

Each knife was put through tests meant to asses its particular features; our tests for bread knives differed from the one we used to evaluate boning knives. We plucked the best Japanese-style knives out of all these rounds of testing, and after consulting with experts, we cut the list down to a good mix of price levels and brands we consider trustworthy. With the right care, a Japanese knife should last a lifetime, and we want to ensure your money isn’t wasted on low-quality steel.

Sometimes. Japanese knives are often single-bevel, meaning they're only sharpened on one side and are specific to right- or left-handed users. This is different from most Western-style knives, which are sharpened from both sides equally in a double-bevel.) Single-bevel sharpening is more difficult and requires special expertise, while double-bevel sharpening is something most cooks can do at home.

Western-style knives (such as those made by Wüsthof) are typically made from softer metal and need to be sharpened more often than Japanese knives, though the technique and equipment used are the same.

Behn assesses when to sharpen his knives by cutting an onion. “Six months is what I personally recommend based on my onion experience,” he says. “I'm cutting an onion, and it slips on the paper, or there's just like juice all over the place; that's when I know something needs to change. It should not slide on the skin.” How often you need to sharpen depends on how often you use your knife and what you use it for — if you're hard on your knives, they might need sharpening as often as every month or two.

For a nice refresh, there's nothing like having your knife professionally sharpened, but you can also do so at home. With a high-quality Japanese blade, you're probably best off using a whetstone for higher precision and control. There are also more simple and automatic knife sharpeners to try, but these generally can't handle single-bevel blades.

It depends on who you ask. Some will say the santoku, but we find the rounded tip limiting when we need a point. The gyuto is another popular choice, as it will allow you to cut vegetables and proteins easily. Still, even the most multi-purpose knives have their limitations. “You wouldn’t use a gyuto to butcher a pig,” according to Behn. “It would end up all chipped.” Every home cook should be equiped with multiple knives to best cover every possible task.

Aside from proper care and maintenance to the blade itself, Behn says your cutting board material matters. “As long as you don’t have bamboo, granite, or glass. Bamboo is the tricky one. It tears up the knife due to the compounds such as silicone used to stabilize the wood." Behn recommends plastic or solid wood, like our top-tested cutting boards.

You also need to handle your Japanese knives with care: “You can't drop this knife. You can't leave it in the water; you can't twist your way through a butternut squash with this knife because it's gonna get chipped. You have to baby them a bit.” Such extra TLC is not an uncommon requirement across Japanese kitchen brands.

Behn narrows his choices for best Japanese knife brands to Miyabi, Shun, and Tojiro. Miyabi is the most expensive, Shun moderate, and Tojiro a great value brand low on bells and whistles.

He says Tojiro is the most durable and is less about the design, although they do have high-end options. That said, minimalists may like its simplicity. “Every cook is gifted Shuns by their parents and uncles because they look fancy.” Beyond looks, they are great knives that come in a range of styles and functions.

Finally, although the most expensive of the three, Miyabi, his favorite and one of ours as well, gets you a top-end knife. It constantly performs well in our tests, and we recommend the brand often.

There's no one best knife (or one best knife-making country or brand), but many cooks believe Japanese knives are superior because they are sharper, more beautiful, and more precise for certain tasks. On the other hand, good ones tend to be quite expensive, and a small difference in performance may not be worth the difference in price.

Jennifer Zyman is a commerce testing editor for Food & Wine. She's written about food and restaurants for over 15 years and is a proficient home cook with a culinary school degree. Her work at Food & Wine focuses on finding the best new products for cooks using her culinary expertise and in-house tester data. She is always on the hunt for the latest and greatest kitchen technique, trick, or tool. Jennifer's work has also appeared in Simply Recipes, Southern Living, National Geographic, Bon Appetit, Travel & Leisure, and more.