Aogami Santoku Knife

Aogami Santoku Knife

$198.00
$198.00
  • The Best Made Co. Aogami Santoku Knife features a wide Blue Paper Steel blade and a wooden handle, shown against a plain light gray background. NEW
  • A person holds the Best Made Co. Aogami Santoku Japanese kitchen knife, featuring a wooden handle, against a blue and white checkered fabric background. NEW
  • Certainly! Here’s a rewritten version of the sentence using your product data: The Aogami Santoku Knife by Best Made Co. features a wooden handle, includes a protective cream-colored fabric sleeve, and comes packaged in a dark rectangular storage box labeled with the Best Made Co. name. Expertly crafted in Japan, this versatile kitchen knife is designed for precision in every culinary task. NEW
  • A close-up of the Best Made Co. Aogami Santoku Knife, showcasing its dark wooden handle and lustrous Blue Paper Steel blade adorned with engraved markings near the handle, set against a light background. NEW
  • Close-up of the Best Made Co. Aogami Santoku Knife, featuring a wooden handle with a dark bolster and part of its shiny, straight-edged Blue Paper Steel blade, set against a plain light background. NEW
  • Close-up of the wooden handle of the Best Made Co. Aogami Gyuto Knife, featuring a dark bolster and highlighting the smooth texture and natural grain of the wood against a plain, light background. This elegant handle is designed for both comfort and precision, reflecting the quality craftsmanship of this Japanese chef knife. NEW
  • The Best Made Co. Aogami Santoku Knife, featuring a wooden handle and a sharp, straight Blue Paper Steel blade, is displayed from a top-down perspective against a plain white background. NEW
  • A hand holds the Best Made Co. Aogami Gyuto Knife, distinguished by its wooden handle, next to three more of the same knives arranged on a blue checkered cloth. Crafted with Blue Paper Steel No. 2 for exceptional sharpness and precision, these knives are perfect for any culinary task. NEW

Aogami Santoku Knife

Aogami Santoku Knife

$198.00
$198.00

In Japanese, santoku means “three virtues”: meat, fish, and vegetables. This is a knife built on the premise that a home kitchen shouldn't need a drawer full of specialists. The santoku arrived in postwar Japan as households began cooking Western food, and it has been the standard knife on the Japanese counter ever since. Shorter than a gyuto, flatter along the edge, with a blunted sheepsfoot tip that keeps the whole blade on the board. This is the daily go-to.

The core is Blue Paper Steel No. 2 (aka Aogami 2), forged at the Yasugi works in Shimane Prefecture, named for the blue paper the mill uses to label its billets. Chromium and tungsten give it the wear resistance pure carbon steel lacks, and our forge heat-treats it to 61–63 HRC. Its double bevel takes a keen edge, holds it through real work, and returns on a water stone with little effort.

Our forge laminates that core between two layers of stainless in the san-mai method, exposing the carbon steel where it means business. Everything happens under one roof in Sanjo City, where our shop has been based since 1948. Each blade carries our katakana X-mark and ships with a canvas blade guard. Dry it after use, oil it now and then, and the walnut handle will only darken and patina with age. 
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The santoku asks for a different hand than a Western chef's knife. Its edge runs nearly flat, so it wants to be pushed and pulled rather than rocked: down and forward through a carrot, back through a fillet, the tip staying near the board. That flat profile means every cut goes all the way through, which is why a santoku leaves cleanly separated slices where a curved blade can leave a hinge. The tall blade gives knuckle clearance and a broad face for moving a pile of diced onion off the board.

A note on the steel. The Yasugi works produced several grades of high-carbon tool steel that, to the eye, couldn’t be told apart. So the mill marked each one with a different color paper. The smiths who bought the steel adopted the shorthand and named it after its wrapper rather than its formula. Blue paper gave us aogami-kō: blue paper steel in Japanese.

Blue Paper Steel No. 2 is one of the most widely trusted carbon steels in Japan, and the reason is balance. Aogami holds its edge longer than white steel while remaining far easier to sharpen than powdered stainless steel. At the hardness our forge runs it at, the edge can be taken thinner than a Western blade would tolerate, and that’s what's meant when they say a Japanese knife cuts differently.
Aogami Santoku Knife
- Blue steel carbon core
- Stainless steel outer laminate
- Walnut handle
- Canvas blade guard
- Gyuto: 8.27” blade, total length: 14.5"
- Santoku: 6.50" blade, total length: 12"
- Nakiri: 6.50” blade, total length: 12"
- Petty: 5.25" blade, total length: 10"
Never run this knife through the dishwasher. Wash by hand in warm water and dry the blade immediately — the high-carbon edge tarnishes if left wet, and will rust if left wet long enough. Citrus, tomatoes, onions, and anything else acidic will mark the steel within minutes, so wipe the blade as you work rather than waiting for the end of the job. A thin coat of oil before the knife goes back in its guard protects it between uses, and matters most if it will sit unused for any stretch. Over time, those acids and oils will darken the exposed edge into a patina particular to the way the knife is used; that patina is protection rather than damage, and shouldn't be scrubbed away. Sharpen on water stones, and keep the edge off bone and frozen food.
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