Shiro Kamo Spotlight

Shiro Kamo was born in 1958 and is the current president of the Takefu Knife Village, of which he is a founding memeber. A third generation smith, he was involved with his fathers business from a young age and started a full time apprenticeship at age 25. 20 years later at the age of 45 Kamo-san was awarded the designation of Traditional Craftsman from the Japanese Government, awarded for mastering his craft, and largely having a part in the growth of the craft in the Echizen region, making the Takefu Knife Village one of the largest producers of knives in Japan. 




When we saw Shiro Kamo last, during our April 2023 visit to Japan he was still working away, well into his 60's, hammering out some sobakiris. One of the most difficult shapes to make, usually reserved for special order from most shops and smiths, he effortlessly worked through a large batch during our short visit at the Takefu Knife Village. While still pumping out knives of his own Kamo-san has been a mentor to many other smiths over the years and continues to pass down his knowledge to the younger generation to this day, notably having trained Shigeki Tanaka in Echizen before he returned to Miki City to take over his 4th generation smith that used to focus on more agricultural tools, but now specializes in both single and double beveled knives.




Kamo-sans knives are another product that we have difficulty keeping in stock. If you've watched many of our Youtube videos you know how much Gage and the guys love anything from Shiro Kamo, however his nakiris are always a standout. 

Being Gage's long standing favorite nakiri pick, the Shiro Kamo Kurouchi Nakiri boasts a very tall, thin aogami super blade with a stainless cladding that is not only high performing, but incredibly fun to use. Sure you can find Chinese cai-dao, or Japanese chuka-bocho if you're really looking to commit to the cleaver life (I do even have one myself I like to play with from time to time) but maybe you don't want to dive right in to that, but a nakiri still isn't scratching that itch. This is exactly where Kamo-sans tall nakiris slot in. So thin and light that they fall through food, and the tall blade gives you lots of travel for chopping over larger ingredients. The blade being so tall also makes it a stand in for a bench scraper during prep not only surgically shredding cabbage, peppers, carrots or whatever you put in front of it, but acting as a scoop to move those ingredients from the board to wherever they need to be.




While the nakiri gets a lot of love, most the same things can be said about his other shapes as well, though we do find that particularly his nakiris and gyutos are the ones that tend to be on the taller side, and I love a nice tall gyuto. 




Stainless steel, carbon steel, powdered steels, iron clad and stainless clad, gyutos, nakiris, bunkas, sujis, pettys and more, Kamo-san makes a little bit of everything and you'd be hard pressed to not fall in love with any of his knives