KATSU Japanese Professional Kitchen Chef Knife，8 Inch Damascus Steel,Handcrafted Octagonal Wood Handle,Walnut Wood Magnetic Sheath with Gifts Box

Good quality knife and sheath for price range with superb sharpness and great handle. Blade is light and balanced. Would like to state that it is good for the three virtues of cooking with bones and shells excluded.

The knife was purchased as a gift and the recipient was beyond pleased with the craftsmanship

The good: the blade itself is great. The Damascus steel is beautiful, the blade is incredibly sharp, and the curved blade gives for a very smooth and easy dice experience. The bad: the handle is awful. I suspect that the handle is made of plastic, as it’s very light and feels like it could break easily. Good kitchen knives have the steel go from the tip of the blade all the way to the butt of the handle; this is often showcased by having the steel exposed at the top of the handle. This handle does not do that, which is something I would expect in a knife of this price and quality. All of this makes for a very light knife (typically the heavier the better), and an awkward balance. Overall, it’s a bit strange to have such a high quality blade in such a cheap handle. It’s like making a steak sandwich with Japanese wagyu beef and putting in between two slices of Wonder Bread. As such, the knife is overpriced, making it difficult to recommend. A more fitting price for this might be around $80-$90. This is a good starter knife for someone interested in getting high end chef’s knives, but I would recommend looking into higher quality soon after.

I love everything about this knife. It holds an edge all day and all I ever do is drag it down a steal once or twice to start the day. Great knife and beautiful as well.

This is a bad Quality I had this knife for two months in already broke on me I will never buy another one from this brand or company

Excelente

I bought this knife before I knew what real Japanese knives felt like and looked like. If I could go back in time I would certainly not buy this knife again. First off this is definitely not real Damascus, it seems the pattern is just etched on. The blade also feels very flimsy and weak. Out of the box it was sharp enough to cut but by no means razor sharp. It also went full quite quick, and is not the easiest to sharpen. All in all this knife is by no means a $100 knife. Save your money and buy from a real Japanese blacksmith!

Sharp, great presentation, feels great in the hand

i'm a semi-pro cook and i love and enjoy a good knife. have this for few months now and use them everyday. still sharp as day one and they feel amazing

If this review provides the info you need before buying, please consider marking it "Helpful", as that's very helpful for reviewers! I had never heard of Katsu as a brand, and from what I read in other reviews, I wasn't the only person to be a little hesitant regarding the price due to unknown country of manufacture and such things. I did some deep digging, and from everything I've seen, Katsu is indeed a Japan-based manufacturer of knives, more commonly known for high quality but reasonably priced pocket knives, many of which have a Japanese flavor in their styling, which they share with this very traditionally Japanese Santoku. So, you can thankfully put those types of fears to rest, I did the research for you. It does appear that the blade is made of actual folded or pattern welded steel and not just an etched billet. This explains the price to a large degree, as a blade like this takes a lot of effort to create. The handle also appears to be actual ebony wood, and the bolster does appear to be water buffalo horn. This is a standard style for high quality Japanese knives, and octagonal handles are also common, especially with the water buffalo bolsters. The included saya is beautiful and lightweight, and has an internal magnet to keep it attached to the knife when it is stored inside (so the saya doesn't fall off). The materials used in the construction are of higher quality than most run of the mill knives. I do a lot of cooking, so I do a lot of cutting meats and vegetables. I also spent 10 years working in kitchens earlier in my life, and I know a quality knife when I use one, and this is a quality knife. It came sharp enough to shave with out of the box, and the edge has retained its sharpness so far, though I used it for about 4 hours total since receiving it, and it is still as sharp as when I took it out of the box. It seems to hold its edge extremely well. The octagonal handle works for me, it feels very natural in the hand, though I've never used a knife with a handle like this before. A thing to note: As with most high quality knives, this should be washed with soap and water and dried immediately, not run through a dishwasher, or left to drip dry in a drying rack. This is my new daily driver knife. Now here comes the hard part. Is it worth the price? I've gotten chef's knives here on Amazon that are pretty inexpensive when compared with the knives I often used in professional kitchens (Henckels or Global for example), but are essentially just as good. Could you buy a knife that is just as serviceable as this for less money? Almost certainly. But it depends on what you're looking for. From what I can see, this is actually very well priced for the level of craftsmanship you're getting. It seems that Katsu has a niche they fit in, both for kitchen knives and pocket knives; To compete with the boutique quality high end offerings at a lower price, and in my opinion, they deliver.

Best chef knife I have ever used.. light weight and easy to hold. A very sharp knife and a pleasure to use.

I'm going to assume that this is real "damascus" steel, since I'm not an expert and honestly can't tell even though I wonder about a few things like the fact that I can't see any visible folding pattern in the ground edge nor the spine of the blade. Apparently real damascus can still look like this, and that the pattern could just be polished out. The pattern does have an etched look on the faces of the blade, and it looks fairly natural. My rating is going to assume the damascus is genuine. My only real issue with this knife at this price point though is a matter of balance. I can't tell if the blade has a full tang or not because the steel doesn't pass all the way through to the end of the handle nor are there any tell tale rivets or anything like that but I'm starting to suspect it's not full tang because the balance of the knife is pretty poor and very heavily weighted to the front - there is no point off of the blade that even comes close to balancing it. In use, most people probably won't care but a knife at this cost really should be better balanced. The handle itself is nice enough, and appears to be authentic wood as you can see the grain at the butt. The blade itself comes out of the box sharp enough but it's not razor sharp. Time will tell how well it holds the factory edge, but sharpening or changing the factory profile on it is not a big deal if you have any sort of sharpening equipment on hand. The magnetic/wood sheath it comes with is extremely nice, though, and something you'd normally see skimped on. It makes throwing the knife in a drawer something you can actually feel okay about doing and I really appreciate it since my knife block is already totally overloaded with knives that I can't do without. There is no evidence whatsoever about the origin of the knife so assume China and that this is a "Japanese style knife" and not a "Japanese knife" I think the knife would make a good gift as I feel it's more about flash than function, so it's not a knife I would personally put my knife dollars into ahead of more practical blades from established well known knife manufacturers.

Très belle présentation, très belle étui, beau design. Cependant, soit qu’il était mal aiguisé ou soit qu’il perd rapidement son affûtage. Très déçu de la qualité.