Overview:
The Wa Gyuto (in Japanese gyuto means “cow blade”) is the Japanese interpretation of the classic Western Chef's knife. It is suitable for cutting the vast majority of meats, fish, vegetables and fruits. For meat, it is used to saw back and forth for large cuts, to pull cut for softer meats, for a better surface finish and to push cut for more chewy meat. For vegetables, this Japanese knife is used to chop or thrust-cut like a nakiri near the heel, to rock-chop stiffer produce in the belly and to make fine cuts at the tip.
The Gyuto knife is double bevelled, deep bellied and narrows to a point.There is usually a slope from heel to the tip which causes the wrist to point down and shoulder to raise up to make cuts.
The lightweight traditional Japanese knives handle of the Wa Gyuto knife moves the balance point of the knife further towards the tip, which makes it feel more nimble and precise. The edge is more robust and there is less of a learning curve. The harder steels used allow them to take sharper angles, with better edge retention, they simply outperform Western chef’s knives.
A gyuto knive is usually asymmetric. This is a big difference between Japanese knives and western knifes and it is something left-handed persons need to pay attention to. If the knife is not labeled specifically, it is made for a right handed person. The cutting edge will have different angles on each side. To aid in food release, the right blade face is usually convex and the left is more flat. This chef knife is ground this way.
A knife can be made from a single piece of steel, or it can be a core of steel covered in some type of cladding, leaving only the part near the edge exposed. Cladding can be used to achieve different looks and it has no effect on the cutting edge. Our Gyuto knife has a Damascus Steel (rain drop) 1085 or 15n20 cladding.
Our handle options are the wooden Japanese handle (wa handle), which is lighter and blade heavy, which helps with cutting. They are also easier to replace than Western style (yo) handles.
We hope you love the Japanese Gyuto Knife.
