Best Kitchen Knives?

L

Lucky Strike

Joined
Oct 2, 2006
Messages
131
I just got married a couple days ago and one of the gifts we recieved was a nice looking kitchen knife set and after spending the past week reading on this website I must say i was a bit bummed to see China stamped on the blades. They're a nice looking set though from Oxford.

http://www.target.com/gp/detail.htm...538484-1430562?_encoding=UTF8&asin=B000E1U1ZY

Can you guys point me to some threads on the best kitchen knives out there or let me know what you all have found to be really good? I tried using the search function but nothing really came up. I'm thinking i'm going to buy a couple high quality knives and then have this set for it's steak knives and such.

Thanks!
 
Do you want western style knives or eastern?

This is one of the better oriental kitchen knife sites that I have found. I'm not sure of the quality of these, but it's one of the only sites that actually tells whether the knife is single (left or right) or double bevel.
http://www.watanabeblade.com/english/index.htm


For western style http://www.knifecenter.com/knifecenter/kitchen/
You can't go wrong with any of the big names such as Henckels, Forschner, Victorinox just make sure you pick their professonal models.
 
Also, I may be preaching to the choir here, but I find a lot of non-knife people don't properly care for their kitchen knives and then complain about them later. I mean, my father had a set of professional Henckels, and then complained about edge dulling after a few years of use. I later found out that he stored them loose in his drawer with a bunch of other stuff, dropped and left them soaking in the sink, and attempted to 'resharpen' them by loosely swatting them back and forth on a sharpening stone (yes, like a vertical paintbrush), thereby completely ruining the edge and finishing the job. So I guess it depends what you mean by 'best', and whether you're ready to put in effort to maintain 'the best' in say, for example, your carbon damascus knives.

Unrelated comment - I really love the Forschner paring knives. :)
 
I'm not sure whether i'd want a eastern or western style.....I just want something that comes with/and will hold a very sharp edge.

And yeah if I'm gonna buy a separate couple of knives (when we already receieved a set) you can bet I'm gonna make sure they are well cared for.

I notice on most kitchen knives it doesn't say what they're made of....just usually something like high carbon SS which makes it somewhat tough to compare
 
The Kershaw Shun line ( laminated steel ) , I also like Wustof trident stuff , particularly the Santokus .

Chris
 
For all around great European quality and value, R.H. Forschner.

For more money, there are the Kershaws and Wusthof Trident (their German made product, not the Chinese made product) and a very few others.
 
Is there anything particular about your current set of kitchen knives, performance-wise, that you're unhappy with?
 
The BEST can get really expensive real quick, if you checked out the link above.

Even Really Really good ain't cheap, but you look around, research, ask questions, then decide what you need, there is no need to really ding your wallet.

Lots of good info at www.foodieforums.com They are really into their kitchen cutlery, but a lot are professional chefs. Some aren't. Good place to find out what you need and what you don't. 2 or 3 well chosen knives should handle 99% of your needs.

Also, check out our own MAKERS section. Daniel Koster, for 1 example, makes very reasonable, custom kitchen cutlery. Nice stuff! Ask him what he thinks.

You can do real good, just research well before plunking down those hard earned $$$$.

Rob
 
I'll give you my 2 cents worth of perspective. You are a newlywed and I make the assumption that you are young and just "starting" out. In the big priorities in life, especially starting out, a high end kitchen knife set is pretty far down the scale. Now this is all coming from the perspective of a guy who has been married for 36 years and put three kids through college (1 PhD and 1 with a Masters and 1 "still "finding himself").

There is probably nothing the matter with the set you got as a gift as I have used some kitchen knives in the past from Target. The key is how you use them. NO cutting on glass, ceramices, steel, etc. Use cutting boards; wood or plastic. Use the steel lightly to keep them sharp and never put them in a dishwasher.

Then as you progress in life and start accumulating high end kitchen gear; invest in a very good Chef's Knife, one that has the heft and feel that is comfortable (I still use a Henckels 8" Chefs Knife I bought 30 years ago) and slowly start adding to the collection. Heck, the block that came with your gift will work on the replacements.

Learn how to sharpen and how to use a knife.

My personal kitchen knives are all Henckel, Wustoff and most recently Kershaw SHUN Classic paring and boning knives. They are awesome.

Congratulations on the marriage and I hope you stay together a long, long time.
 
Don't buy a block set. You won't use half of the knives. Take your time and buy one or two at a time. Go to some knife shops or shows and handle them. See which one feel best to you. Wusthof make a good european style. The Kershaw shun series are excellent. Global also makes an excellent knife.
The last two I bought were from a custom maker as I like the style and 154 steel.
 
I agree with the last few posters: start with a small set: fullsize Chef, 6" utility and a paring knife should be more than enough for 95+% of your food prep needs. If you are on a budget, I highly recomment Forschner as the best bang for your (short) buck. Next up, I would definitely pick the Shun line before Henckels or the other overweight mass market "luxury" brands.

I personally don't see much point in going higher than the Shun line, but if you have hit the lottery and need to spend the money, the William Henry Line looks like good place to blow a bunch of G's. Or if you know what you want, you can get a set made to your exact specifications (well any specifications that are physically possible) from any number of custom makers out there.
 
tim8557 gave some very good advice. The other thing that I would like to add is that expensive does not always mean better. I have an assortment of inexpensive Japanese cooking knives and Chinese cleavers that i bought st various Asian markets and they work great. If you are still determined to look for a knife may I point you in the direction of a mastersmith named Murray Carter, http://www.arizonacustomknives.com/displayKnife.asp?pid=4375 or this one http://www.arizonacustomknives.com/displayKnife.asp?pid=4377 . Both are great knives that will last you a lifetime.
 
tim8557 said:
I'll give you my 2 cents worth of perspective. You are a newlywed and I make the assumption that you are young and just "starting" out. In the big priorities in life, especially starting out, a high end kitchen knife set is pretty far down the scale. Now this is all coming from the perspective of a guy who has been married for 36 years and put three kids through college (1 PhD and 1 with a Masters and 1 "still "finding himself").

There is probably nothing the matter with the set you got as a gift as I have used some kitchen knives in the past from Target. The key is how you use them. NO cutting on glass, ceramices, steel, etc. Use cutting boards; wood or plastic. Use the steel lightly to keep them sharp and never put them in a dishwasher.

Then as you progress in life and start accumulating high end kitchen gear; invest in a very good Chef's Knife, one that has the heft and feel that is comfortable (I still use a Henckels 8" Chefs Knife I bought 30 years ago) and slowly start adding to the collection. Heck, the block that came with your gift will work on the replacements.

Learn how to sharpen and how to use a knife.

My personal kitchen knives are all Henckel, Wustoff and most recently Kershaw SHUN Classic paring and boning knives. They are awesome.

Congratulations on the marriage and I hope you stay together a long, long time.
Click to expand...

You're right...in fact I haven't even used the knives and I'm sure they work just fine. It's just that i'm new to this whole knife collecting thing (just found this site about a week ago and I already bought two knives, EnduraWave and Leek).....when i get into things I kind of tend to go nuts :D

The whole collecting thing is now spilling into the kitchen. After checking out some of those site i didn't realize kitchen knives could be that expensive....I'm looking for stuff in the $30-40 per knife range (i do really like the looks of the Shun series). I agree knives are down the importance scale for a new marriage (i'm currently putting my new wife through nursing school)...it'd be a case of saving my change till it adds up to $35 and then getting a new knife till I have a nice little 3-4 knife set of the larger chef's and boning knives :)

I just wanted to get an idea of what was quality and was wasn't and people have steered me in the right direction which is why i love this forum.
 
I am back again after your last post. First, Congrats to you and your new bride. Use the knives you got as a gift. They will work fine for now. You can get some nice ones later. When you do decide to get one, do just that. One good knife at a time. In the long run you will be much happier.
 
As much as I hate all the ads and banners on KF, you might try posting a question over there. There's an "In the Kitchen" forum, and those guys know their kitchen steel.

Almost to the man, those folks are going to prefer Japanese blades to German. Harder steel. Less sharpening.

From what I've gathered, you get a lot of bang for the buck with the Tojiro DP Sweden Steel line.

You can get them here: http://www.japanesechefsknife.com/TOJIRO2.html

I myself have a set of Wusthofs, but I'm thinking of getting one or two of the Tojiros to try out.
 
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