Japan Gate is a specialist retailer of Japanese kitchen knives, based in Riga, Latvia, and serving customers throughout the European Union.
We are a new business. Our first collection will be selected in person in Sakai, Osaka, in October 2026, and will go on sale later that autumn.
Why Sakai
Sakai has been making blades for some six hundred years. What makes it unusual is not only the age of the tradition but the way the work is organised.
A Sakai knife is not made by one person. The trade is built on a division of labour that has held for centuries. A blacksmith forges the blade. A separate specialist sharpens it — in Sakai this is a craft in its own right, not a finishing step. A third fits the handle. A workshop commissions the work, inspects it, and puts its name on the result.
This is why the same forge can supply blades to several different names, and why two knives bearing different marks can share a maker. It is not a shortcut or a marketing arrangement. It is how Sakai has always worked, and it is the reason the city's knives are as good as they are: each stage is done by someone who does nothing else.
We mention this because it is often described inaccurately. Knives are frequently sold in Europe as the work of a single named artisan. We would rather tell you what actually happened: who forged the blade, who sharpened it, and which workshop stands behind it.
How we work
We buy in person. We travel to the workshops, meet the people who make what we sell, and select stock ourselves. We do not buy through intermediaries who have never seen the forge.
We sell only here. Our knives are sold through this site alone. We do not list on Amazon, eBay or other marketplaces, and we do not discount to win a price comparison. A workshop that supplies us can be confident about where its name will appear and at what price.
We say what we know, and no more. Where we can name the blacksmith and the sharpener, we will. Where a workshop prefers not to disclose that, we will say so rather than invent a story.
After you buy
A Japanese knife is a tool that expects to be maintained. Carbon steel will darken and will rust if left wet. A thin, hard edge will chip if used on bone or a hard board. None of this is a defect, and all of it is manageable once you know what to expect.
Every knife we sell will come with plain instructions on care and sharpening, written for someone who has never owned one. We would rather sell fewer knives to people who will still be using them in twenty years.
Contact
Japan Gate
Riga, Latvia, European Union
info@japangate.eu
+371 29653695
We are happy to hear from customers, from workshops in Japan, and from anyone with a question about the knives we carry.