(Pros: Construction, Design, Durability, Material Quality, Overall Quality, Sharpenability, Sharpness
Cons: None
Nice knife
Nice. BalanceNice sharpNice stays sharp Nice looking Nice feelNice knife
Shun DM0718 Classic Hollow Ground Santoku Knife 7" Blade, Pakkawood Handle
Special Price* :
$151.95
Our Price* : $189.95
MSRP* : $237.00 | You Save* : $85.05 (36%)
Part #: KSDM0718 | Shun Cutlery Knives
Description
KSDM0718: DM0718 Classic Hollow Ground Santoku Knife
Shun Cutlery
A santoku is a Japanese all-purpose kitchen knife. Like a chef's knife, the santoku is used for just about every cutting job in the kitchen. The name means "three virtues." Depending on who you ask, the name refers either to the three types of foods it works well with—vegetables, proteins, and fruit—or for the three types of cuts at which it excels—slicing, dicing, and chopping. Hollow-ground indentations on the blade help reduce friction so the blade glides through the food more easily. When we first introduced the Shun Classic Hollow-Ground Santoku to the market, it was named "Kitchen Knife of the Year" by Blade magazine. The Shun Classic Hollow-Ground Santoku is part of the Shun Classic line of tasteful and contemporary cutlery.
The Shun Classic line features beautiful Damascus-clad blades and D-shaped ebony Pakkawood handles. Yet behind these handcrafted knives' beauty is function: razor-sharp blades offering top performance. Shun's VG10 steel, known for its incredible edge retention, is clad with Damascus stainless steel, then ground and bead-blasted, revealing the flowing pattern of the layered steel. The result is a line of knives that are sharp, durable, and corrosion resistant, as well as beautiful to behold. The Shun Classic line also offers you the widest assortment of both traditional culinary blade shapes and cutting-edge designs, so you can always find the right knife for the task.
Knife Center has an excellent selection of kitchen knives, kitchen accessories, cutlery, and kitchen gadgets.
Specifications
- A light and maneuverable all-purpose kitchen knife
- Named 2005's Kitchen Knife of the Year
- Hand-sharpened 16° double-bevel blade (32° comprehensive)
- Steel: VG10 cutting core, 32 layers (16 per side) stainless Damascus cladding
- Handle: D-shaped ebony Pakkawood
- Blade length: 7 in. (17.8 cm)
- Handcrafted in Japan
UPC Code: 4901601589481
Related Categories
Shun Cutlery Knives, Shun Classic Series, Damascus Blade Steel, Wood Handle Material, Kitchen, Kitchen Santokus/Santukos, Made in Japan
Badges
Customer Reviews
Robert
MichiganSep 05, 2025
Ry61572
NYOct 07, 2021
Pros: Sharpness, Material Quality, Overall Quality, Construction, Durability
Cons: Sharpenability
True, know what you're getting and how to use it
What has been said about blade brittleness is true. But it's only an issue when not used as designed. It is for delicate preparation - not heavy processing. In my opinion those that have issues with fine Japanese knives abuse them or don't know how to use them properly. It is not an all purpose knife and most people should avoid it...not because it's of poor quality but because it has a very specific purpose and will not operate well outside of its design. This scenario can be likened to the person who buys a racecar and expects it to operate the same and be as versatile as a minivan or pickup truck. No, it's a tool for a specific job that it does very well when used by those skilled or trained in it's proper use. That said, like most hard metal knives, these are hard to sharpen. But once sharpened stay so for much longer than others. Also, get the hollow grind version...it's totally worth it in my opinion.
Fishboy
Riverside, CAFeb 07, 2016
Pros: Sharpness, Material Quality, Overall Quality, Construction
Cons: Material Quality, Design
Know what you are getting
These Shun knives just aren't as fantastic as the hype. Don't get me wrong, they are nice for what they are. Now that the price is more reasonable, they are getting closer to being worth it, but know what you are getting. People seem to love them until they actually live with them for a while. I think the reviewers here are right on. Your friends will come over and admire them, but you'll probably just leave it on the magnet bar for people to admire and use another knife for daily work. These are Japanese knives from a Japanese company. They are meant for slicing, not chopping down through the material and whacking into your cutting board. If you push straight down through your carrot and it makes a loud grate and then a clack from hitting the cutting board, you are using it wrong. You should pull through gently with control and your slices should be silent. That's separating the cell walls, which is best for high-end preparation, rather than crushing cells (think the perfect surface on a slice of sashimi). You have to treat the edge like some kind of delicate glass. That's the theory, at least, and mine shows no chips after a six or seven years of use. I've chipped other Japanese VG10 knives before I got schooled by a master chef. The tendency to chip comes with this blade material and hardness, just as it would for a high end blue steel knife. That said, yeah, the blade material is hardened to the point of brittleness. Most users should avoid it. One commenter states that this is a vegetable knife, another says it's not for meat, but it's a "san"toku which means "three" jobs: meat, vegetable and fish. It's just not a resilient enough blade to *do* those three jobs fully. It will chip on hard vegetables (like splitting a pumpkin or rutbaga), and it'll chip if you try to part out a leg of lamb when it hits bone. Then you have to pick and choose what you cut, and it's mostly stuff like tofu, soft vegetables, fruit, boned meats, filleted slabs of fish. It seems that the main use is just to own a damascus-clad VG10 blade and show it off on your magnet bar. I find myself grabbing a mid-level Henckels santuko to do almost every job that I should be able to do with this knife. When I'm showing off, I have an Al Mar that's virtually the same in character, but prettier. You'll notice I pick material quality as both a pro and a con. It is. It's both it's signature asset, and the reason that I think these knives don't suit their purpose that well.
