Yoshihiro AUS-10 Uzushio Damascus K-Tip Gyuto 210/240 mm

Not quite - and it is the single most common point of confusion when people shop for a kiritsuke. The two knives share the same striking angled, reverse-tanto tip, but underneath that tip they are very different tools.

A K-tip gyuto is normally a double-bevel knife: it is ground on both sides like any Western-style chef's knife, so it is forgiving to use, and sharpened exactly the way you would sharpen a normal gyuto. You get the dramatic kiritsuke look with the everyday usability of an all-purpose chef's knife.

A traditional kiritsuke, including the kiritsuke-yanagiba (slicer), is a single-bevel knife, ground on one side only. It is historically a master chef's knife: it takes real practice to use well, is set up for right-handed users by default, and needs single-bevel sharpening technique to maintain.

So if you want the kiritsuke silhouette with no learning curve, choose a K-tip gyuto. If you specifically want the traditional single-bevel discipline - and the precision it allows on fish and vegetables - choose a true kiritsuke. At Knives and Stones we stock both, and each product page tells you which construction you are looking at.

We suggest AUS-10 as a sound stainless for an easy-care first knife, not a budget compromise. Aichi Steel, which makes it, groups AUS-10 with AUS-6M and AUS-8 as the grades that add more carbon, plus vanadium and molybdenum, to improve hardness, wear resistance and tempering resistance.

We stock it in our K&S AUS10 Monosteel line and the Yoshihiro AUS-10 Uzushio Damascus line. Stainless means 10.5% or more chromium and rusts less, the JSSA says, so wash and dry it after use.

Yamawaki Hamono (株式会社山脇刃物製作所), a Sakai knife company founded in 1927, makes them: Yoshihiro is its main brand and carries the name of the Kamakura-period swordsmith Goh Umanosuke Yoshihiro (郷右馬允義弘).

Its company page says the firm makes and sells mainly high-end kitchen knives for professional cooks, as well as knives for homes and cooking schools.