Nihonbashi Kiya

The Cutlery of Edo

Cutlery specialist Kiya kept pace with the prosperity of Edo commerce. At the time of the company’s founding, Nihonbashi was home to Edo’s largest fish market, with seafood caught in various parts of the country transported here via rivers and other water routes.

To process the enormous variety of seafood sold in the market as quickly as possible, specialized kitchen knives for specific uses were created at places such as Kiya, whose blades steadily became sharper. Even today, you may notice many blades inside the shop that represent the history of Japanese cutlery, including sashimi knives, classic designs for cutting fish or chicken bones, kitchen knives for chopping vegetables, and specialized ones for use in preparing seafood such as tuna, eel, and octopus.

Not only is Kiya a long-established knife shop with roots in Nihonbashi that reach back more than 220 years, it’s also a veritable art museum with displays covering the history of Japan’s leading blacksmiths and their creations.

Kiya's blades open up a whole new world of culinary possibilities

Kitchen knives play an important role in expanding one’s cooking repertoire, allowing you to better work with the ingredients used in Japanese cuisine. Kiya’s offerings are made from an ancient Japanese type of steel called tamahagane. Traditional methods are used to produce blades that offer the precision sharpness required by professional chefs. A kitchen knife that is refined from steel can be maintained and sharpened over a lifetime.

True to the saying, “You can tell the chef’s skill by looking at their knife,” a beautiful, well-used kitchen knife is one sign of a first-rate chef. The best part about Kiya is being able to consult with staff who have a vast knowledge of cutlery. With their help, you can choose the blade that suits you best in the same place where you can find the sharp Japanese knives loved by top-notch chefs.