Muneyoshi White #2 Santoku 180mm

As of 3/1/2022 we have upgraded the handles to the ones you see pictured: octagonal oak wood featuring a burnt urushi finish.

Muneyoshi knives are made in Yamagata City, Yamagata Prefecture. Muneyoshi originated as a manufacturer of Japanese sickles and their specialty is forging Hitachi Carbon steels like Shirogami#2 and Aogami #2 which they clad with soft iron. They moved into making kitchen knives for local consumption utilizing the same clad steels and single edge designs which are still popular with chefs in the area.

The use of a single bevel is quite unusual in a santoku, which customarily features a double grind. This feature results in a blade that has a very acute inclusive edge angle and thus can slice through tougher ingredients with less splitting, wedging, or sticking. Of course, it also means that they are only useful to right-handed users.

This santoku combines many attributes of a gyuto and western chef knife with a blade shape incorporating the sheep's foot tip. This design essentially draws the spine down to the tip, with very little clearance above the horizontal cutting plane when the blade is resting naturally from heel to forward cutting edge. The santoku is a knife that favors less of a rocking motion as compared to a gyuto or chef knife.

Mr. Suzuki is the head blacksmith of Muneyoshi and he told me he always works to put his soul and spirit into each knife he forges. For the past 50 years, his main business was sickle manufacturing and he believes he has produced and sold more than 1 million sickles! That’s a lot of soul!

Brand: Muneyoshi

Blacksmith: Mr. Suzuki

Location: Yamagata, Japan

Construction: Hammer Forged, San Mai

Steel: White #2

Cladding: Soft Iron

Grind: Single Bevel (Right Handed), Flat Back

Weight: 4.7 oz (134 g)

Blade Length: 179 mm

Total Length: 316 mm

Spine Thickness at Base: 3.9 mm

Blade Height: 46.9 mm

New handle is like the photos, not the video