Decent Cooking knife set?

corwise

corwise

Joined
Nov 10, 2006
Messages
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For my wife's birthday I was planning to buy her a new cooking knife set. Looking to spend around $200. It has to have a set of steak knives with serations, she insists on that. :) Any thoughts/ideas would be appreciated. Thanks.

Dave
 
There was a professional gourmet chef who used to hang out on the forums who swore that Victorinox Forschner gave the most bang for the buck by far.

I have had a set of Henkels 4-star for 20+ years. The knives are beautifully ballanced and easy to sharpen, but my Vic Forschner chef's knife holds an edge longer, is almost as well ballanced and cost about 1/3 as much. YMMV
 
I had the same intrigue concerning kitchen cultury. May I up the ante and give it a $500 budget for the whole kit including chef, utitlity, and all the others you'd find in a wooden block. Would you still go with the Vics, and just more of them or another brand. I'm intrigued by Kershaw quite a bit with their Shun line...

-Ryan
 
I went through this as well, finding the right cooking set for a knifenut

Eventually I found a post here referring to Japanese chef's knife. Not the greatest website, but they have some amazing kitchen knives and some of them are even reasonably priced. The cleavers are crazy.

I can't tell you how cool it is to get boxes from Japan, it makes you feel special :jerkit: . I got a few Tojiro brand knives...which I notice they don't carry any more. Hmm, I wonder why.

But it's another site to check out for sure. Send them an email, they are super friendly.
 
I have the kershaw shun knives. I love them, they are beautiful. Honestly i havent cooked with them yet but with a vg-10 core they have to be good. Plus alton brown from Good Eats endorses them.

They are a bit pricey though. A ittle more economical would be mac knives. Some of their knives are very thin, great for certain types of slicing. They have good handles and we always have one or two at my house. On has slight rust.
 
I'm a dedicated novice in the world of kitchen knives (at least what you cut ends up in your stomach) and let me tell you. Japanesechefsknife.com is the way to go.

The main difference between Japanese and German (Wusthof, Henckles) cutlery is the steel and how it's ground down.

Because the Japanese use steels and tend to use HRC from 58-68, they can grind the edges to really fine points - And they won't get dull as quickly.

Japanesechefsknife offers the best prices and service (3 day shipping... from JAPAN!!)

A few other US based sites are: (but they usually have higher prices)

Korin.com (NY) - having a 15% off sale for July
Japanwoodworker.com (SF)
Epicureanedge.com (Seattle)

The best "Bang for the Buck" choice would probably be Tojiros from Korin (with the July discount). They're stainless and are way cheaper than the Shuns but with similar performance.

If you have any questions feel free to shoot me an email
 
:eek:
Darn, the word is getting out.
japanesechefsknife.com :)

All lot of choices there, almost all of them good. As noted, because of blade thinness they will outperform the German stuff hands down. If you are going through bones, hard rind veggies/fruit, or frozen stuff be specific about the style of knife you want as the majority of these knives are not made for this type of work (edge chipping). Others here are far more knowledgeable than I.

Good luck...!
 
I own the Shuns. They are wonderful in many ways. Be careful if you are a Lefty. I wanted them so badly, I didn't notice that they are made for Righty's. It has to do with handle design. I still use them, but it's not ideal. There are good deals on them out there. One that comes to mind is Bed Bath & Beyond with a %20 coupon.
Another very good thing about them is that they are made by Kershaw. This is a big plus.I somehow scratched my chef's knife, and it bugged me to the point of sending it to Kershaw hoping they would charge me to polish it. You can probably guess what happened. They sent me a brand new one.
 
I too like the Forschner Fibrox knives. If the plastic handles don't impress you, Forschner also makes wooden-handled knives that are more classically attractive.

My favorite knife is the Tosagata Hocho Santoku. There aren't many places you can get a handmade knife for $30.
 
They are old school but I really like Henckels Pro-s series. I prefer a heavier, traditionally handled knife. I find Globals too light, Shuns too expensive... Wustoff Grand Prix are awful nice as well.
 
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