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Watanabe Blue Steel Gyuto 240mm Review

Watanabe knives have been a particular fascination of mine since I first started getting into Japanese knives.  However I had always worried about getting such a nice knife and putting it through the rigors of a busy professional kitchen.  I would like to begin this review by saying that the Watanabe impressed me way more than I expected it to.

When the knife arrived at my house a few weeks back, I was initially impressed with the fit and finish of the knife.  The blade was very straight, the handle was well finished, and there were no errors or blemishes on the knife whatsoever.  The edge was even polished to what I believe to be a 6000 or 8000 grit finish.  While it was sharp out of the box, it seemed to me like a blade that could achieve a lot more with a little work on some stones.  The blue steel in this knife is very easy to sharpen and can hold a very acute edge.  In the past few weeks I have put on edges ranging from 15-18 degrees to 4-5 degrees (thanks to KCMA).  The knife holds all of these edges for a reasonably long period of time in a professional kitchen under constant use.

The knife itself is by no means a knife that needs to be babied.  The Watanabe has some heft to it.  In fact I would say it is a larger and heavier knife than my 270 blazen, and the 270 tadatsunas that I have been using look almost anorexic in comparison.  This, however, does not really hamper the effectiveness of the knife.  The geometry is superb.  The knife has just enough belly to feel comfortable, but not enough to feel like a French chef's knife.  The 55mm blade height helps the knife feel more like a 270mm gyuto than the 240 that it is.  And the knife does not wedge hard foods as I had expected from its 3mm thickness.  Overall, it was just a really pleasant knife to use.

However, there were also a few negative aspects of the knife that need to be pointed out to perspective buyers.  First and foremost, this is a carbon knife.  So for people who do not wipe down their knives regularly or cut lots of acidic foods, this could be a negative.  I used this to julienne a case of sweet onions, a case of leeks, and a case of lemons.  I found that the edge degraded significantly faster than on my blazen.  Also, while using this knife during dinner service one night, I left the blade unwiped for no more than 2 minutes and found the beginnings of rust forming on the side.  This is in part due to my unwillingness to force a patina, but I do believe that this steel is more reactive than others I am used to working with.  Also, this knife does require a more delicate touch than some other knives I use on a regular basis.  For example, I decided to put this knife up against a Blazen, Takeda AS, and tadatsuna to see which knife could take the most abuse and still keep working well.  This knife placed third, beating out only the tadatsuna for durability.  I will say that the abuse those knives took in that one day is more than almost any person will do to their knives in the course of a year, but I still found it to be enlightening.

Overall, I think this knife is a great knife.  I would highly recommend this to all home cooks and professional cooks that can properly care for carbon knives.  Not only is it a beautiful knife to look at, but it will outperform many knives at that price point as well.  I have enjoyed testing this knife and I think it will take a regular spot in the work kit from now on.  In fact, I am quite sure that in the near future I will be buying more knives made by Shinichi Watanabe.

-Jon