I didn't want to hijack the thread on kitchen knives for $125-$150. I do have a question. A number of responses to that thread indicate some experience with high quality kitchen knives. Not interested in a set, individual knives. I don't care if they "match", seeking quality. What say ye?

There are many high quality kitchen knife manufacturers. BUT, kitchen knives are like guns. They have to fit and feel good. Handle feel and balance are extremely important and different to each user, much like a gun. Some of the top brands: Shun, Wusthof Classic, Global, Henckel 2 man (i'd put these a tiny step below the first three, their forged blades are thinner which is nice for cutting but tend to chip easier.) among others. I'm 6'3 with x-large hands, to me the handles on the Japanese knives tend to be smaller in diameter than the German brands. The Shun's sure are pretty though. You can't go wrong with any of the top brands forged knives, but feel is everything.

My favorite overall are Wusthof Classics and my favorite and by far the most used knife (95% of the time) is their 7" hollow ground Santoku. This guy
www.wusthof.com/7-santoku-hollow-edge-1945

Do you cut with your kitchen knives western style or Japanese style? I'm partial to cold forged German knives.

As far as kitchen knives, you only need 3:

8" to 10" chef's knife, 7" santoku, or 6.5" Nakiri

3" to 4" Paring knife

8" to 10" Serrated Bread knife

I took a knife skills class about 5 years ago sponsored by Zwilling and was able to try all of their German (Henkels) and Japanese (Miyabi) knives. Even though we were able to try expensive knives such as the $400 Miyabi damascus steel Santoku or the Kramer 10" damascus chef's knife over half the class bought Henkel's at the time brand new 6.5" Nakiri which has the blade profile of a 10" chef's knife with the front 3.5" cut off. I can take a pile of veggies and dice it much faster and more efficiently than my 8" Henkel's chef's knife. Regrettably, I have a 7" Henkel's Santoku that I never use and wish I still had the cash in my pocket.

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Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

Cutco knives are very good, sturdy, stay sharp and made in the USA. My wife loves the ones I bought her.

I got her a large set used at a gun show about 15 years ago. The set sold for over $700 new at the time. It was missing one steak knife and I got the set for $175 + $50 to replace the missing knife new from the factory. I doubt I would have ever bought the set at full price.

As for me, I am still happy with a set of Case kitchen knives we started buying one piece at a time 50 years ago.

Like guns and shoes, it's all about fit. How it feels in your hands given the method you use to cut.

Commercial made brands like Henkels, Wusthoff, Shun, Global, Sabatier, MAC...are all very solid, knives that will last a long time. Just make sure they have a full-tang. After that it's a matter of Western (German) or, Asian (Japanese) style, how much carbon is in the stainless steel alloy and general design: does it have a full bolster or, partial, handle shape, handle material. Splurge on an awesome chef knife, there's a difference. Paring knife is the utilitarian knife, no need for super high-quality unless you're doing specific precision work. A solid bread and meat slicer is a nice add to the collection. A quality boning knife or, fish knife is nice too.

If you're looking to splurge, or, dork-out about kitchen knives with professional chefs, I've gotten a few from these places:

Korin knives Their location in NYC is a temple of blades

Bernal Cutlery

Cut Brooklyn

Town Cutler

The only knife you actually need. After that, I'd start here.

I'm a Henckel fanboy though...

In my experience, the best bang for the buck would be Henckels Twin Signature. They are ice hardened, stamped stainless. They hold an edge for a long time and take a beating. All the German made Henckels are good though. Avoid the "international" line that is chinese made.

If not on a budget, Shun is my favorite brand, hands down.

I have a 22 peice set of Shun Kaji knives that cut like theres some kind magic involved. They are not for the careless though. Even the cleaver shaves baby butt smooth with a single pass across the skin. They are very pretty but very fragile. Dont let your kid use it as a srewdriver to take apart his X-box controller.

A few years ago I got my Cutco knives from a gun show dealer. What made the deal attractive is that I could pick the knives I wanted instead of getting a pre-made package of knives I would not use.

Spendy yes but have never looked back. Worth it for a good set.

Is your wife going to use them? ... If so you're probably wasting your money.

I cook a lot of various kinds of meat and fish for large family gatherings and cannot tolerate poor quality knives. I have been gradually replacing all my knives with Zelite ("Z" for Zorro). I don't know right where they stand in terms of "best", but they are wicked sharp and most importantly feel good in my large hands. They come boxed in a very nice storage case for storage away from misuse by those who fail to appreciate fine cutlery
https://zelite.com/

There are two kinds of knives:

Kyocera ceramic knives.

The rest.

I bought a Homemaker set of Cutco knives about 1994. Pricy at the time for my income level, but have been very happy with the purchase.

As mentioned earlier, you do only need three knives. The others are handy, but not used as much.

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:
There are many high quality kitchen knife manufacturers. BUT, kitchen knives are like guns. They have to fit and feel good. Handle feel and balance are extremely important and different to each user, much like a gun. Some of the top brands: Shun, Wusthof Classic, Global, Henckel 2 man (i'd put these a tiny step below the first three, their forged blades are thinner which is nice for cutting but tend to chip easier.) among others. I'm 6'3 with x-large hands, to me the handles on the Japanese knives tend to be smaller in diameter than the German brands. The Shun's sure are pretty though. You can't go wrong with any of the top brands forged knives, but feel is everything.

My favorite overall are Wusthof Classics and my favorite and by far the most used knife (95% of the time) is their 7" hollow ground Santoku. This guy
www.wusthof.com/7-santoku-hollow-edge-1945

You read my mind.

I have enough kitchen knives to fill three knife blocks, but when it gets down to it, only 4-5 knives get used often. My favorite is the Wusthof model 4183 Santoku that jimmy mentioned above. I have a Yaxell Gou 101 Santoku, but I still prefer the Wusthof.

https://www.amazon.com/Yaxell-...-Count/dp/B005PY39RM

On paper and at nearly twice the price, the Yaxell is supposed to be far superior, but I prefer the feel of my Wusthof.

The knives I use most are:
7" Santoku
9" Chef's knife
Utility knife (doubles as a steak knife)
Trimming knife
I'll include kitchen shears and honing rod too.

A bread knife is often recommended in these threads, but I don't cut bread much. A knife w/ a thin, flexible blade is important if you like to prepare whole fish and sushi.

If you want a quality knife that will hold and edge, sharpen easily and make food prep more enjoyable, stay away from stamped blades. Forged and/or laminated will cost 2 or 3 times that of a stamped blade but you get what you pay for. We have some inexpensive stamped knives that we'll use when we know it will be abused such as cutting through bone. Otherwise the "good ones" are used daily and only require a touch up with a ceramic honing rod now and again. They go a long time before they need a full blown sharpening. Maybe twice a year. Henckels Professional and a couple of Chicago Cutlery is what we have, but there are many other brands that are good.

I've no experience with Japanese knives but as I understand it they are usually made with a 12-17 degree grind. This makes them extremely sharp at the cost of being more fragile and will require sharpening more often. Again, this is what I've been lead to believe so someone with more knowledge about these knives might chime in.

I walked into this cutlery shop that I didn't even know was there in Freeport last summer.

Knife lovers heaven. Every Benchmade you could think of and many quality cutlery items.

I couldn't leave without. something, so I wound up buying a 7" gourmet knife made by Wusthof. Not the high priced version, but the $50. one.

Very impressed with it. I will go back this year when we are back up there.

I do have some pretty good knives to start with, but this one has been bumped up to my go to.

Bob

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:
As far as kitchen knives, you only need 3:

8" to 10" chef's knife, 7" santoku, or 6.5" Nakiri

3" to 4" Paring knife

8" to 10" Serrated Bread knife

I disagree with this a bit. I love nakiris, and use one more than any other knife, but I don't think it's really a replacement for a chef's knife.

In the Japanese knife tradition, nakiris are used pretty exclusively for slicing and chopping fruits and veggies. They excel at that, but there are other things that having a longer, curved edge with a point make much easier. "Bocho" is "knife" in Japanese and "nakiri bocho" literally translates to "knife for cutting greens."

A santoku does a better job of replacing a chef's knife, but the Japanese also have a knife very similar to a western chef's knife (the gyuto) for a reason.

quote:

Originally posted by iron chef:
A knife w/ a thin, flexible blade is important if you like to prepare whole fish and sushi.

Interestingly, the traditional Japanese knife used in breaking down/filleting fish is almost exactly the opposite of the thin, flexible Western fillet/boning knife. The knife is called a deba, and it looks pretty much like a short, fat chef's knife - but by the standards of other kitchen knives, much less Western fillet knives, the blade is ABSURDLY thick. Obviously this requires a somewhat different filleting technique.

The knife traditionally used for slicing pieces of fish for sushi has a very long, narrow (but not flexible) blade so that each cut can be made in one stroke - a back and forth sawing motion results in an uneven surface texture.

There are a couple of interesting Japanese boning knives that have blade shapes more similar to Western boning/fillet knives, like the honesuki and garasuki intended for breaking down poultry and the hankotsu intended for red meat, but they aren't usually flexible.

quote:

Originally posted by NavyGuy:
I've no experience with Japanese knives but as I understand it they are usually made with a 12-17 degree grind. This makes them extremely sharp at the cost of being more fragile and will require sharpening more often. Again, this is what I've been lead to believe so someone with more knowledge about these knives might chime in.

Japanese knives do usually have a thinner grind than Western knives. In terms of edge retention, they make up for it by using much harder steel.

Typical high-quality Western kitchen knives will usually be hardened somewhere around 58 HRC, sometimes as high as 60.

For Japanese knives, hardness around 62-64 HRC is common, and as high as 66 is not unheard of.

Of course, a thinner, harder edge means the edge is more prone to chipping, so Japanese knives tend to be less tolerant of being misused than Western knives.

So I'm going to chime in on the Primary (chef/santoku or similar), paring, serrated as the only need (except maybe a boning knife but I just don't do that so I'm not going to comment on them). But this isn't about need, right? And I agree kitchen knives are like guns, but unlike guns in the high cost factory production range, there just isn't a lot of "non-individual taste" difference. Some people like Shun (me included!) but Zwilling, Henkels, and the other brands are just brands that you might individually like but aren't real world that different.

SO: I'm going shout out dozer and sybo, both who have made/are making knives for me from the Forum.

They are both great makers (and there are others of course), and if you are spending real coin on a knife ($300 or more) that's not a lot more than a real nice Production knife (many of the high end Production Primary's are that much with or without sales) but that is custom and exclusive to you, made very well and exactly to your individual taste. And is lovely and wonderful. I'd go for something from them (and have with real money (or I guess for honestly's sake add trades for items of real value) rather than the main Production lines.

I would not spend anything more than $20 on a serrated knife. Ever.

I can maybe see spending some money on a nice paring knife if I tilt my head and squint, but to me the beauty of a knife is the blade, and in a Primary, you have a lot of blade to show.

Got me some Shun knives coming tomorrow. Very excited.

Wustof and henckels are the way to go for high end European style.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
The only knife you actually need. After that, I'd start here.

I'm a Henckel fanboy though...

We don’t have the Santoku knife that Skins recommends, but we’ve had a set of the Henckels Professional “S” series knives for quite a few years now. Quality, cost, edge retention and sharpenability (if that’s a word). Hard to beat

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
The only knife you actually need. After that, I'd start here.

I'm a Henckel fanboy though...

I'm a big fan of the Henckel Professional "S" series as well. I got a set for my wife about 20 years ago and have added a few since.