Kai

Origin and background

Kai is a Japanese cutlery and cutting-tools maker rooted in Seki, a city with more than 800 years of blade-forging tradition, where Saijiro Endo founded the company in 1908. From that swordsmith heritage grew a group known above all for its Shun kitchen-knife line and its Seki Magoroku range.

Specialty

Shun knives are hand-forged in Japan from steels such as VG-MAX and VG10, often clad in a striking multi-layer Damascus pattern with a wooden D-shaped handle that settles into the right hand. Outdoors and around the kamado, these blades shine at filleting, boning and the fine preparation of meat and fish, where a clean cut and edge retention matter more than brute force.

Our take

At mikamado we chose the Shun Classic DM-0702, an 18 cm santoku in VG-MAX Damascus steel, as the natural gateway into the Kai world for a grill cook who also cooks. Based on the specs, the user community and our own experience cooking on our Big Green Egg Large, it is a blade that pairs high hardness, a very fine edge and a contained weight for chopping vegetables and slicing protein. An honest caveat: high-hardness steel demands respect — a wooden or plastic board, no bone or frozen food, and immediate drying — and the D-handle favours right-handers. It competes head-on with Global and with Miyabi, Zwilling's Japanese sister brand.