Kurosaki Sasame COSP Santoku 170mm

Both are all-purpose Japanese knives, and for most home cooks either will handle the bulk of daily prep. The choice comes down to length, blade shape, and how you like to cut.

A gyuto is the Japanese chef's knife, with a gently curved edge that lets you rock and slide through cuts as well as chop. Tojiro's guide to Western knife shapes gives 150 to 210mm as the household size for a gyuto and up to 360mm for professional use. The extra length and pointed tip give you reach and versatility, from proteins to large produce.

Tojiro's guide to Japanese knife shapes gives 165 to 170mm as the household size for a santoku, which has a flatter profile and a rounded sheep's-foot tip. It rewards a straight up-and-down push cut, feels nimble in smaller hands or tight kitchens, and is the classic Japanese household knife.

Rule of thumb: choose a gyuto if you want one do-everything knife with more reach, or a santoku if you prefer a compact, easy-to-control blade. Plenty of our customers end up owning both.

Match the shape to your stroke. Rock chopping keeps the tip on the board and rolls the curved belly through the food, so a gyuto or a Western chef's knife suits it, and Japanese knives rock fine as long as you rock gently.

Up-and-down chopping, the Chinese style, wants a straight run of edge, so a nakiri, usuba, santoku or bunka suits it better; a curved edge chopped straight down easily leaves pieces joined. Neither shape is better; it depends on how you cut.

A Japanese dictionary explains the name of the santoku (三徳包丁) as coming from the three things it handles: meat, fish and vegetables. The same dictionary entry points from the santoku to the bunka (文化包丁), treating the two as one knife.

One Japanese knife maker guide distinguishes the two by the tip. It says that in the Showa era the bunka was made with its tip cut at an angle, and the santoku came after it by rounding that tip.

Cobalt Special (CoSP) is Takefu's stainless blade steel for cutlery: Takefu's page describes it as super high-grade and made by a special remelting process that gives a uniform composition and finely dispersed carbides.

Takefu's table gives 1.05% carbon, 16.00% chromium, 1.50% molybdenum, 0.25% vanadium, 0.25% tungsten and 2.50% cobalt, with a hardness of HRC 60 or more. In Takefu's description, tungsten improves tempering resistance, molybdenum adds corrosion resistance, vanadium gives a finer microstructure, and cobalt strengthens the matrix and helps keep a long-lasting edge. Its 16.00% chromium is above the JSSA's 10.5% minimum for stainless, which the JSSA says strictly means rusts less; wash and dry the knife after use.

We think so. Yu Kurosaki established his own workshop in 2014 after twelve years at Kanehiro Uchihamono (カネ弘打刃物), and he was certified as a traditional craftsman (伝統工芸士) in 2019. In a 2022 interview with the magazine Nihonmono, he described his knives as thin, sharp and tough.

We list his knives in steels such as SG2 and Blue Super. For a closer look at his work and approach, you can explore the Yu Kurosaki maker page on the Knives and Stones site.

All four are Yu Kurosaki's own designs. In a 2022 interview with the magazine Nihonmono he named his five original designs, Shizuku, Fujin, Raijin, Juhyo and Senko, and described his knives as thin, sharp and tough.

In our range the steel is in the product title: Senko and Fujin are made in SG2 and Raijin in VG10W. So pick the design you like first, then check the steel in its title.

Yes. Yu Kurosaki worked at Kanehiro Uchihamono from 2002 to 2014, then founded his own workshop, 黒﨑打刃物 (Kurosaki Uchihamono), in 2014, and he is certified as a traditional craftsman. The trade body's profile of him lists double-bevel forged knives and custom knives, and his own site says his Echizen forged knives are made one by one by a craftsman's hand.

The Kurosaki knives we stock, such as the Senko SG2, Fujin SG2, Raijin VG10W and Shizuku lines, carry his name in the title.