The most essential knife for the kitchen which no chef can be without.

The gyutos meaning is “Cow sword” in Japan as gyu means “Beef” and to means “Sword” this is also known as a Chef’s knife or French knife. It is the one and first knife all chef’s/cooks needs in their kitchen. When buying your first gyuto you have to consider how and what will be built around your first knife as it will do the majority of the work in your kitchen.

Gyutos like chef’s knives go from 150mm up to 370mm which is massive, when starting out go for something in the range of 180mm to 210mm depending on the size of your hands. Later you can go for a larger chef’s knife like a 260mm to 280mm which can be used for larger jobs like cabbages, large dicing and meat cuts like beef sirloins and fillets.

SG2 (R2) is a high speed powder stainless steel made by Takefu special steel Co Ltd. For some knife makers, this is an ideal steel for knife making as it has a great hardiness of greater than 63HR. This steel has great edge retention, high wear resistance and is stainless. The grains are so fine and uniform that the hammer forging is not necessary. The migaki finish to the knife is the most common finish to japanese knives and is achieved by buffing or polishing the blade until it is shiny, but not mirrored. This finish has different levels, from matt to shiny. The word tsuchime means “hammered” and that’s how this finish is achieved. After the blade has been forged, it will go through a second hammering process with something like a ball-peen hammer to give the distinctive round dimples.