Santoku knives

The Santoku knives are general purpose kitchen knives, the Japanese version of the western chef’s knife. The word Santoku means “three virtues”, referring to the three main tasks of the knife: slicing, dicing, and mincing. The blade of a Santoku has a size between 13 and 20 cm (5″- 8″) long and is almost flat, with a peculiar “sheep’s foot” shape where the spine contacts the edge at an angle of 60 degrees at the tip. Since the edge is not very rounded, the Santoku has a limited rocking capacity compared to Western chefs knives, but is considered a well balanced knife. In addition, the Santoku Knife is lighter, thinner, shorter and harder than the corresponding Western knives.