A few years ago, A blurb in a food magazine caught my eye. In it, a chef recommended a unique-looking Japanese chef’s knife with huge dimples on just one side of the blade, designed to prevent food from sticking to it. Knives with small dimples are common, but these were huge, and I wondered if the manufacturer was on to something. The knife turned out to be just as interesting as it looked. While it appears Since it is specialized equipment, it can help any home cook. Whether you’re looking for your first beautiful chef’s knife or your forever blade, this Japanese Gyuto is just the thing.
You may have seen dimples (also called dimples or “kullens”) on other knives and wondered if they prevent food from sticking to them, but on Glestain’s blades they’re oversized and they work. The Glestain’s dimples – no less than two rows of them on the Gyuto – are extreme, like a neat double row of thumbprints on just one side of the blade. Lefties like me order theirs with the dimples on the left side and righties get them on the right side. Left-handed people can use the right-handed version (and vice versa) and still love it; You would only lose the non-stick effect of the knobs. I was excited to put it through a long-term test.
Hard and durable
A gyuto is a type of chef’s knife whose shape lies between the curvy belly of a German chef’s knife and the nearly flat edge of the French style. There are two versions of Glestains Gyutos: Professional and Home. I tested both and found that they are both professional-level devices. The main differences are that the Professional has both a larger tang (the metal part that runs through the handle) and a metal plate on the handle of the knife. This makes it significantly heavier – it feels a bit like a tank. Most home cooks and home cooks prefer the home version for everyday use.
Both versions feature a hard steel blade – 59 on the Rockwell hardness scale – in a blend of chromium, carbon, molybdenum and vanadium. This combination creates a hard, thin and durable blade that is rust-resistant and has good edge retention. (For more knife nerds, check out Chad Ward’s excellent reference. A head start in the kitchen.) The Glestains are Western-style knives made in Japan, high quality Japanese blades with handles like those found on traditional French or German knives. It is very comfortable and evenly balanced and will keep you happy as you plow through mountains of fruits and vegetables.
Photo: Joe Ray
But really, we’re here for these dimples. Since it is a “normal” knife, no special action is required to use it. It only took a minute to understand what awaited us and how effectively they worked.
The dimples are quite deep and much wider than other knives. I have an old Mundial food slicer and the Glestain’s dimples are much deeper and easily three times as wide. The real magic happens when what you cut is wider than the dimples.
I got to hack, really happy. Dimple or not, it’s a beautiful knife to work with. Dicing onions felt like I was doing it with an extremely beautiful blade, not a magical one. For those accustomed to the curvy belly of a German chef’s knife, the Gyuto’s flatter arc takes some getting used to. I cooked Moroccan chicken stew from Vishwesh Bhatt’s cookbook. I’m from here, a 2022 favorite. It contained chopped dried figs that weren’t too sticky. I loved that Crunch-crunch-crunch Feeling of chopping roasted pecans.
Bring out the new Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Extra good things In the cookbook I made a daikon version of his kohlrabi tonnato recipe. The daikon was about five centimeters in diameter. I started by making quarter-inch thick slices using the Glestain and my Santoku, a more vegetable-focused Japanese knife. The discs lay neatly next to the Glestain, but when I switched to the Santoku, they stuck to it like almost any other knife. I had similar results when I quartered and sliced the daikon.