Sujihiki Knife: What It Is and What It Slices Best

A sujihiki is a long, narrow, double-bevel Japanese slicing knife. The name means flesh slicer, and the blade is built to draw through cooked meat, roasts and raw fish in a single stroke without sawing or tearing the surface.

It is the knife most home kitchens do not own and most professional kitchens will not work without. If you have ever carved a brisket with a chef's knife and watched the slices come out ragged and uneven, the sujihiki is the answer to that problem.

What is a sujihiki knife?

Sujihiki translates roughly as flesh slicer — suji for sinew or muscle fibre, hiki for pull. The name describes the technique as much as the blade: you pull, you do not press.

Three things define the shape. It is long, usually 240mm to 300mm (roughly 9.5 to 12 inches). It is narrow, often only 35 to 45mm tall at the heel, which is barely half the height of a chef's knife. And it is thin, with a gentle taper and very little belly, so the edge stays in contact with the cut for almost its entire length.

Crucially, a modern sujihiki is double-bevel — sharpened on both sides, like a Western knife. That makes it the practical, ambidextrous cousin of the traditional single-bevel Japanese slicers, and it is why a sujihiki is the slicer most cooks should actually buy.

What is a sujihiki knife used for?

The sujihiki has one job and does it better than anything else: separating cooked or raw protein into clean, even slices.

Carving roasts and brisket. The length lets you cross a whole brisket flat in one pull rather than three, and one continuous stroke leaves a smooth face instead of the washboard edge a short blade produces.

Slicing raw fish. The thin, low blade parts fish cleanly without compressing it, which matters when the surface of the slice is the finished dish.

Portioning cooked poultry and ham. Turkey breast, glazed ham, porchetta — anything where the slice needs to hold together.

Trimming. The narrow profile gets under silverskin and fat caps with far more control than a tall blade.

Steak and tri-tip against the grain. Long, thin cuts through a rested piece of meat with no tearing — our guide on slicing brisket and BBQ cuts covers the technique.

What it is not for: bone, frozen food, hard vegetables, or anything that needs downward force. A sujihiki is thin on purpose, and levering it will chip the edge.

Sujihiki vs yanagiba: what is the difference?

They look similar and do related work, but they are not interchangeable.

A yanagiba is single-bevel — ground on one side only, flat or slightly hollow on the other. That geometry lets it separate a slice with almost no friction, which is why it is the traditional sashimi knife. The trade-off is that it is handed (right- or left-handed versions are different knives), it demands a specific sharpening technique, and it is specialised for raw fish.

A sujihiki is double-bevel. It gives up a little of that ultimate slicing finesse and gets back versatility: it works for either hand, sharpens like any other kitchen knife, and handles cooked meat as happily as raw fish.

If you slice sashimi professionally, buy a yanagiba. For everything else, the sujihiki is the more useful knife.

Sujihiki vs gyuto: which do you need?

The gyuto is the Japanese chef's knife — a tall, curved, all-purpose blade. The sujihiki is a specialist. They are not competitors; they sit at opposite ends of the same kitchen.

A gyuto has height for knuckle clearance and a curved belly that rocks through herbs and onions. That height is exactly what makes it a poor slicer: a tall blade has more surface area gripping the meat, so slices stick and drag.

A sujihiki has almost no belly and very little height. It is useless for chopping an onion and unbeatable at carving a roast.

Buy the gyuto first — it does eighty per cent of the work in any kitchen. Add the sujihiki when you find yourself carving regularly and the chef's knife keeps letting you down. Our gyuto knife guide covers the all-rounder in detail, and the Japanese chef knife guide shows where every shape sits.

Sujihiki vs a Western carving knife or scimitar

Western kitchens solved the same problem differently. A carving knife is longer and thicker with a more pronounced curve; a scimitar sweeps into a deep upswept curve built for breaking down primals at a butcher's block.

The sujihiki is thinner and straighter than both. That makes it better at the finishing cut — the slice that goes on the plate — and worse at the heavy work of separating a carcass. A butcher wants the scimitar. A cook plating the result wants the sujihiki.

What length should you buy?

The rule is simple: the blade should be longer than the widest thing you cut, because a slice made in one pass beats a slice made in two.

240mm (about 9.5 inches) suits smaller kitchens, fish and everyday roast work. It is the easiest length to store and control.

270mm (about 10.5 inches) is the sweet spot for most cooks — long enough for brisket and whole sides of salmon, still manageable on a domestic board.

300mm (about 12 inches) is a competition and pro-kitchen length. Wonderful on big cuts, awkward on a small board.

Longer is not automatically better. If the blade overhangs your board by four inches you will lose control of the tip, and control is the whole point of this knife.

How to use a sujihiki properly

Let the length do the work. Set the heel on the meat, draw the knife toward you through the whole stroke, and lift — do not push down and do not saw back and forth. A sharp sujihiki should need almost no pressure.

Rest the meat before you slice it, and cut across the grain rather than along it. Keep the blade off bone entirely.

Because the edge is thin, it wants a finer sharpening angle than a Western knife — around 15 degrees per side on a 1000/6000 stone. Our whetstone guide walks through it, and sharpening a Japanese chef knife covers the angles in more depth.

Questions about the sujihiki

Is a sujihiki worth it?
If you carve roasts, brisket or whole fish more than occasionally, yes — it is the difference between clean slices and shredded ones. If you mostly prep vegetables, buy a better chef's knife instead.

Can a sujihiki replace a chef's knife?
No. It has no height for knuckle clearance and almost no belly to rock with, so it cannot do general prep. It is a second knife, not a first one.

Is a sujihiki the same as a slicer?
Essentially, yes — sujihiki is simply the Japanese name for the slicing knife. Japanese slicers tend to be thinner, harder and ground finer than their Western equivalents.

Can you use a sujihiki on raw fish?
Yes. It is one of the two knives built for it. A yanagiba gives a marginally cleaner face on sashimi, but a sharp sujihiki handles fish beautifully and is far more versatile the rest of the week.

The slicers in our range

We do not label a knife sujihiki, but three blades do the job by geometry.

The Torii 10" Sakimaru is the closest to a classic sujihiki: 10 inches of hand-forged 7Cr17MoV high carbon steel, a narrow 40mm profile that minimises drag, a 12° edge and a sword-style sakimaru tip taken from the traditional takobiki. It sits on an octagonal maple wa-handle.

The Dynasty Series 12" Slicer is the long-format option, built San Mai style with a Japanese AUS-10 high carbon stainless core clad in softer stainless steel for support.

The Silver Dynasty 10" Scimitar takes the Western route — 67 layers of Damascus around a cobalt-enriched 10Cr15CoMoV core at 60±2 HRC, swept into a curve for long carving strokes on brisket and whole birds. Its twin, the Damascus Dynasty 10" Scimitar, does the same in darker Damascus.

Pair any of them with a proper all-rounder such as the Torii 8" Gyuto and you have the two knives that cover a whole kitchen.

Shop the range

Browse the butcher and slicing knives for the long blades, or the Japanese chef knives collection for the shapes that surround them. Every blade we forge is hand sharpened and oiled before it ships, and every one carries a 99-day home trial and a free lifetime guarantee — the sharpest blades you will ever use or your money back.

Keep reading: Demystifying Japanese Knife Types: Nakiri, Bunka, Gyuto, and Sujihiki Explained