Japanese Kitchen Knives, Utility Knives, Chinese Knives

All-Purpose Kitchen Knives

Vegetable Knives and Chopping Knives

Fish Knives, Sushi Knives, Chinese Knives, Noodle Knives

Kitchen Knives made of Powder metallurgy High Speed Steel

Hideo Kitaoka Handmade Kitchen Knives

Whetstones

Sharpening Instructions

Making of Japanese Knives

View the Smithy of Hideo Kitaoka

If you find it hard to choose the right stone from the large number of different whetstones we offer, we recommend a stone from our combination stone page. If you don't have a lot of experience with these kinds of stones, we recommend a stone with 1000/3000 grain. For those with a little knowledge of the process, we recommend a 1000/6000 grain stone for a really razor-sharp edge. The 1000 grain side is for sharpening, and the 3000 or 6000 grain side is for removing the fine burr that develops along the edge during the sharpening process. These stones should be lubricated with water only!

Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should one use a sharpening steel or any of the other patented sharpening devices on the market. If there was a good one out there, we would sell it. They may promise a revolutionary way to simplify sharpening a knife, but this is simply marketing twaddle. One needs only to read the instructions we include with every knife and every stone we sell, and then to practice a little. The result will be the truly sharp, long-lasting, and easy-to resharpen edge that your fine knives deserve.

Preparing food is a real pleasure if you have a sharp knife. You can forget the suffering induced by knives that are better at flattening tomatoes than slicing them if you start using Japanese kitchen knives and following a few simple rules.

Hard cutting steel between two layers of iron

Within this group the ryoba (=double-sided) type has the cutting steel embedded between two toughened iron layers. These knives are sharpened from both sides.

The kataba (=single-sided) type has the cutting steel forge-welded to one layer of iron. These knives are sharpened form one side only and are especially suitable for filleting tasks.