Knifewear's Top 5 Carving Knives (Sujihikis)

A couple of years before starting at Knifewear, I was the chef of my own restaurant and looking for a change of scenery. I had just bought a gigantic smoker with the idea of getting into competition BBQ and eventually opening a BBQ joint of my own. One of the things I discovered early on in my research was that you are marked on the quality of your slicing in competitions; you lose points for uneven and jagged slices. I decided that I needed a slicer just as big as my smoker so I would be able to slice even the biggest brisket with one motion. — Enter the Moritaka Ishime.

Moritaka-san’s sujihikis have the greatest range of sizes of all of the lines we carry. He makes everything from a baby-sized 210mm slicer all the way up to the gargantuan 360mm slicer that I bought for briskets. Moritaka knives seem to be a little more rugged compared to other knives made from similar steels. Maybe it’s because of the cold hammering process that gives these knives their rocky appearance helps with edge retention or that they are a little thicker and heftier than other knives.

If you’ve ever been hesitant in getting a carbon steel knife, a sujihiki could be the perfect shape to take the plunge on; when you’re slicing fatty hunks of meat, rusting doesn’t tend to be as big an issue.

This will easily be one of the most badass knives in your kits. Whether you're slicing it up at a buffet carving station or want to impress the in-laws with your holiday turkey: The Hammer Tone makes an impact.

Fujimoto knives are made by a team of experts, each one specializing in a specific part of the process. This allows each craftsman to master a specific skill, and far exceed the precision and consistency of a jack-of-all-trades. The SLD steel can sit for hours without rusting, but will offer the sharpness and edge retention of more traditional high-carbon steels.

One of my favourite blacksmiths that we work with is Masashi-san. Not only are his blades spectacular, he’s a really nice guy and a riot to hang out with. He prefers to work with SLD, a stainless steel from Hitachi that is usually used for punching shapes out of other steels (so you know it’s gunna be sharp). He also has a couple of stellar finishes up his sleeve that I just love.

I think that the sexiest slicers come from Masashi-san’s workshop and I don’t care who knows it! Check out the mirror polished Shiroshu and etched kurochi Kuroshu lines; both are beautiful damascus with their own appeal. I would give my left foot for a 270mm Kuroshu sujihiki, no questions asked.

Masashi-san’s knives really appeal to culinary professionals. They are easy to care for, slightly more rugged than other knives of a similar hardness, and draw a crowd when in use. If you sliced an Easter ham for you family with one of these, you would go down in family history. For those who want something even bigger, check out Masashi-san’s maguro bocho. Technically it’s for cleaning large fish like tuna but I’ve used one on Montreal smoked meat and I’ve never felt like more of a bad-ass.

Sometimes you just need a reasonably sized, realistically prices, radically sharp razor of a knife to get the job done. The Haruyuki Nishiki is that knife. 240mm is the perfect length for many folks, as it deftly handles holiday turkeys, easter hams, and roast tenderloin. If a pinch, it'll even do a brisket!

The folks at Haruyuki did something pretty smart with this knife: they clad the carbon steel core in a layer of protective stainless. This gives you the crazy sharpness of high carbon steel, with very little of the maintenance. Keep the edge dry, and you're laughin'!

Few blades are as blindingly sharp as the legendary Masaskage. Froged by Yoshimi Kato-san, it'll be YEARS before you sharpen this bad boy. My dad sharpens his sujihiki about once per decade, and when you combine that with the bananas edge retention of white carbon steel, you're set for a long, long time. It's gorgeous, it cuts like crazy, and it's the perfect size for a Sujihiki.