Sakai Takayuki Kurouchi Nakiri 170mm

This Sakai Takayuki Kurouchi nakiri knife is a 170mm vegetable knife built around Aogami 2 carbon steel, iron clad with a rustic kurouchi finish and set on a walnut handle with a buffalo horn ferrule. It is a proper traditional Japanese vegetable blade, and it does one job better than anything else in the kitchen.

Sakai Takayuki carries more than 600 years of blade making history from Sakai City in Osaka, a place that made samurai swords long before it made kitchen knives. That heritage still runs through everything they produce, and their traditional forged lines like this one are where it shows most clearly. The kurouchi finish, the black scaly surface left on the blade straight from the forge, is the blacksmith’s own finish. It is prized for its rustic character and it also helps slow the reactivity of the carbon steel underneath.

A nakiri is the Japanese vegetable specialist. The tall, flat, rectangular blade is built for one thing above all: chopping vegetables cleanly and quickly with a straight up and down motion. There is no curve to rock, and you do not need one. The flat edge meets the board along its whole length, so it cuts all the way through in a single push with no accordion slices left joined at the bottom. The height gives your knuckles clearance and lets you scoop from the board. If you do a lot of vegetable prep, a nakiri knife will change how that part of cooking feels.

Steel and Construction

The core is Aogami 2, also called Blue 2, a revered high carbon steel that balances a keen edge, good edge retention, and easy sharpening. It takes a very fine edge and comes back quickly on a stone. Sakai Takayuki hardens it to 61 to 62 HRC, tough enough to stand up to daily chopping while keeping that carbon steel sharpness.

The core is clad in soft iron using san mai construction, with the carbon core sandwiched between two softer iron layers. The kurouchi finish sits on that iron cladding. Because the cladding is iron and the core is carbon, the whole blade is reactive and will develop a patina over time.

Maintenance and Care

This is a reactive iron clad carbon knife and it needs proper carbon steel care. Wash it by hand and dry it straight away, every time. Never leave it wet or sitting in the sink. The blade will patina, a natural darkening across the face, and the kurouchi finish means much of it already wears that lived-in look from the start. That patina is protective, not damage. Keep it off bones, frozen food, and hard squash, and sharpen it on a whetstone rather than a pull-through. Look after it and it will hold a superb edge for years.

Best for: cooks who do serious vegetable prep and want a dedicated nakiri knife with genuine carbon steel performance, and who are happy to give a reactive blade the wipe-and-dry care it needs.

Kitchen Samurai Ease of Use Rating: 6 out of 10. The cutting performance on vegetables is superb, but the reactive iron cladding and carbon core mean the whole knife patinas and needs diligent drying, so it asks more of the owner than a stainless blade.

HRC: 61 to 62

Made in Japan.

Free shipping on orders over R1,500.