NAGOMI Regular Bread Knife 205mm

NAGOMI is a knife brand by Mitsuboshi Cutlery, a manufacturer with over 140 years of history based in Seki, Japan, one of the world’s most renowned cutlery-producing cities. The brand was born from a collaboration between Mitsuboshi’s fifth-generation president, Takahisa Watanabe, a descendant of sword smiths, and his wife, whose firsthand feedback from home cooks drove the development brief. The result is a knife built to deliver professional-grade sharpness in a format that is genuinely practical and easy to maintain for everyday use. Every knife is finished by hand by skilled craftsmen and inspected using precision instruments before leaving the workshop.

NAGOMI (和) translates to “harmony” in Japanese, and that philosophy shapes the entire range. Rather than chasing extreme hardness like many contemporary Japanese knives, NAGOMI is designed to balance sharp cutting performance with resilience and ease of care. The Regular line is the core of the range, offering clean, functional design with a pakka wood western handle, flush-finished rivets, and a refined profile suited to a wide range of kitchen tasks.

The Bread Knife is a serrated blade purpose-built for cutting through foods with a hard or delicate exterior and a soft interior. At 205mm the blade is long enough to handle most loaves in a single stroke, reducing tearing and compression. The wave-shaped serrations grip the crust on the pull stroke, allowing the knife to saw through without crushing the crumb beneath. It handles everything from a fresh baguette to soft sandwich bread, and performs equally well on cakes, pastries, and tomatoes. Unlike a straight-edged knife, a serrated bread knife requires no sharpening under normal use and will maintain its performance for years with minimal care.

Steel & Construction

The blade is ground from a single piece of 440A molybdenum stainless steel with no cladding, giving it a clean, uniform appearance from spine to edge. Rather than pursuing maximum hardness, Mitsuboshi chose 440A for its combination of corrosion resistance and toughness, then developed a proprietary heat treatment and edge-finishing process to extract sharper, more lasting performance from the steel than is typical for this alloy. The serrated edge is precision-ground and finished in-house, with the geometry verified under precision instruments before sign-off. The pakka wood western handle is produced in-house with flush-polished rivets, so there is no step or ridge where the blade meets the handle.

Maintenance & Care

The stainless steel construction means rust is not a concern under normal kitchen conditions. Hand-wash and dry after use. Unlike a straight edge, the serrated blade does not require regular sharpening and will maintain strong cutting performance through years of normal use. When sharpening is eventually needed, use a tapered ceramic or diamond rod on each individual serration. Avoid using the blade on hard surfaces such as ceramic plates or glass chopping boards, which will accelerate wear on the serrations.

Best for: Bread, baguettes, soft rolls, cakes, pastries, tomatoes

Kitchen Samurai Ease of Use Rating: Set and Forget – A low-maintenance specialist that performs consistently without the need for regular sharpening

HRC: 58

MADE IN JAPAN