Messermeister Mu Bamboo Santoku Knife, 6.5-Inch

Beautiful knife, wish it weighed a little more on the blade still cuts like a dream tho, a shealth or some extra protection for the shipping would be nice to

I spent a couple months looking for a knife to give my close friend as a wedding gift. He is an engineer, and appreciates material properties and well manufactured products. So I went to work researching kitchen knives.Steel:Messermeister doesn't give the specific steel they use, but they do divulge a few of the properties. "High carbon, molybdenum vanadium steel" is what they say on their website about this knife's steel. High carbon is pretty common of stainless steel knives. This isn't some argument about the finest steels with the perfect carbon balance, but it is reassuring that they at least claim high carbon. Vanadium, on the other hand, is good stuff. According to Zknives.com vanadium forms the hardest carbides and creates a fine grained steel. It is one of the best additives you could incorporate into steel. Overall Vanadium contributes to harden-ability, toughness, wear resistance, and allows a knife to take a very fine edge. I have another knife with Vanadium in the steel and I can shave my neck with the edge it takes. Needless to say I slice through any food with ease. Messermeister also states on their website that they harden this knife to 58 Rockwell harness. Many Japanese blades are up around 60-63 from the research I did, but 58 isn't bad at all. This is a hard steel, but not so hard that you will spend great amounts of time to sharpen the edge. Overall, the knife came out of the box shaving hair off my arm without effort, and cutting food like a hot knife through butter (not a promotion to heat this knife to cut through butter.)Balance & Weight:The quality of steel allowed them to make the blade strong and rather thin. This isn't like the German kitchen knives that are made of soft steel and are as thick as a machete. It was far lighter than my german knives, with a bigger blade, and the balance was astounding! I must admit that I almost kept this knife for myself - my friend was lucky it made it to him...Handle:This is more traditional Japanese design. It isn't the ergonomic design you see a lot of knife makers use these days, but this doesn't mean it isn't comfortable. My hands aren't incredibly small or large, but the knife was handled by several hand sizes and they all felt like the handle was comfortable, balanced, and extremely usable.Blade & Knife Shape:This knife definitely has a little bit of a unique curvature. In my short testing I found this to be very nice. Since the handle was slightly angled up I felt like I was able to apply pressure more effectively in my cutting motions. I also felt like it improved the rock motion for chopping that chef knives are designed to provide. The spine dips to meet the tip of the blade, and this made the knife more effective for working with vegetables to make cuts with the tip of the blade.Conclusion:Is this the perfect knife? No, but I sure liked it, especially for the price. It is hard to find a good knife that is made of good steel, and produced in Japan, that doesn't cost a great deal of money. There were a few other knives that were in the running that I found in my research, and I am sure they would have performed very well. For me I wanted to know about the composition of steel, and the hardness of the steel, so I could know how well it would hold an edge and how long it would stay sharp. I assume most people want a knife that is sharp and will stay sharp... It also helped that Messermeister also let me know the degree to which they sharpened the edge. I would recommend this knife to anyone, but keep in mind that 15 degree angle when honing, sharpening, and cutting. It is quite acute, and very sharp.

This has quickly become a favorite. The blade is very thin, one of the characteristics that makes it so easy to use, but one does need to take care not to bend the tip. The handle is comfortable for my large hands and my wife's small ones. Does the job exceptionally well and has an aesthetic that is beautiful without being flashy. A friend spied this from across the room and was so taken with the evidence of high quality of workmanship that it interrupted our conversation.

This is an awesome tool.It comes razor sharp in the box, it's comfortable, it's functional and to top it all off it is aesthetically pleasing. You will be hard pressed to make a better choice of Japanese-style chef knife at twice the price, but it is important to note that this particular tool is a little different than a traditional French knife and will require a little more care and attention due to the Japanese-style 15 degree blade angle (as opposed to the less aggressive ~20 degree blade angle of traditional European knives).This knife and the Messermeister Olivia Elite are both in my kit, and they have specific uses. The Olivia is my workhorse, the Mu is my Thoroughbred. As a culinary professional, I recommend this manufacturer's products over most others because of the combination of phenomenal quality and a fair price.

This knife makes quick work of any breads, from the light and fluffy without squishing the bread, to the hard crusty and hearty breads and needs little effort to cut through. It can handle a fresh toasted bagel or a warm dinner roll. I had a good serrated knife before this, but it was not nearly as long, which prevented me from being able to cut as well as I would have liked. This knife has a long enough blade that you really only have to move it back and forth a few times to end up with a perfect cut.

Excellent, love the Mu series . I've got, 1000 dollar customs to globals, shuns, anything Japanese just about and reach for the Mu most of the time. Love them. Very overlooked from Seki city

I have never tried to use a knife that fought back. It is gorgeous to look at because it is hand made as only the Japanese can manage... but the balance is off. Trying to describe the difficulty is almost impossible. It is incredibly sharp, very thin in the blade... absolutely like paper.. but in order to stay away from the blade I found myself placing my finger along the top part of the blade. I finally returned same and went to Sur La Table where I was able to handle and purchase a Zwilling Pro paring knife. Disappointing.

good