Misono Swedish Carbon Steel Santoku, 7.1-inch (180mm) - #181

An excellent santoku, and an even better value! I'm selling more and more Misono santoku knives to professional chefs who are looking for a high quality Japanese knife with excellent workmanship, materials, fit and finish, but at an affordable price. Please remember, these are Carbon steel, NOT stainless, so they can be fantastic performers, but the additional care required means they're not for everyone! See the main Misono page for more information about care of carbon steel knives. 

What's nice about these vs. some other carbon steel knives like the Moritakas is that they're still pretty "standard" and not overly fragile. They have a more "normal" construction and edge and so are a bit more robust, taking away some of the fear about owning a nice carbon steel knife.

For everyday maintenance, the fine Idahone ceramic hone is the way to go. If you use this regularly (every 2-3 uses of the knife), you can go quite a while before having to do a full re-sharpening. If you need an edge guard, this one is the closest fit.

Please note that Misono knives have a very polished edge. It's very sharp out of the box, but not in the way that many people are used to with European and many other Japanese knives: they have very little "bite" as the edge is polished and so not at all "toothy". So if you take the knife out of the box and try to cut a tomato or bell pepper it might glide over the surface and appear to not cut well... this is why "tomato knives" have serrated edges (the ultimate "toothy" edge!). So while they ARE sharp, you need to adjust your cutting style (think slicing more than chopping) and expectations, and of course you can easily adjust the edge as part of a full re-sharpening (do NOT use a gadget!) or as part of your daily routine... I use a Misono UX10 150mm petty knife at home pretty much daily and I love it, but I have indeed over time removed the polish from the edge for the most part so it's a bit more useful as an all-purpose knife and doesn't have the same tendency to slide over veggie skins.