If you spend much time in your kitchen however, the nakiri knife is one of the most useful knives you can have. The word “nakiri” can be broken down to “na” meaning ‘leaf’ in Japanese, and ‘kiri’ meaning ‘cutting’.

Both chef's knives and Santoku knives are all-purpose kitchen favorites. The chef's knife is a workhorse and the Santoku is a show-horse, and both serve different purposes.

Japanese knives are desirable for so many reasons, but mainly for their hard steel and light, thin, super sharp edge. This makes them the ideal choice for slicing, dicing and more precise cutting jobs.