Which Knife?
Sunday, April 22, 2012 at 2:22PM 
I'm no authority on knives and I don't claim to be. Ive watched my sister's mother-in-law prepare a whole meal with a knife no bigger than a pocket knife. At the same time I've seen Chinese chefs prepare whole meals with razor sharp butcher cleavers. So what do I think is the best knife? Well the answer to that is in your own hands. I personally prefer a nice 8-10" chef's knife to the skinnier carving knife which Thomas Keller has stated as being one of his favorites. My fingers just don't clear the tang when I'm finely chopping up spices. There is an exhaustive list of amazing knife makers who all claim to have the best knives with all sorts of fancy technology, but in my honest opinion no one has better steel than the Japanese. However, unless you're willing to sink hundreds to thousands of dollars into a knife this probably isn't the route to go.
On the road I use a french pocket knife I bought off of eBay (laguiole en aubrac) mostly because I love how it looks and how it holds an edge. It is impractical for preparing meals but for my purposes on the bus it's great. When I'm home my go to knife, the one I reach for first, the one that stays consistently sharp and always shown special treatment is my Henckel 8" chefs knife that was given to me by my mother. She's the original cook in the family and I've learned almost all I know about knife technique and cooking from her. The knife has a nice weight and holds its edge well when maintained using a honing steel before every use.
This brings me to an important topic. Knives should be sharp, not just kind of sharp, but super sharp. It's important to have them professionally sharpened if you don't know how to use whetstones and it should be honed often. Avoid knife sharpeners that you pull the blade through as these just take off steel in jagged pieces and leave your edge uneven and brittle.
There are many many independent knife makers out there who are making beautiful knives that are super sharp and have a great design, seek them out! They are the new world of knife makers and while their price tags are high you will use them for the rest of your life and pass them down to your children and their children. One brand I've been keeping an eye on is Cut Brooklyn. His knives are beautiful and look like they are getting great reviews. I've never used one, but they look absolutely amazing.
My .02 take it for what it's worth.
-joe kwon
knives, my 2 cents
Reader Comments (12)
Great post! The only knife I ever use is my trusty Ginsu chef's knife. Everyone laughs, but it works for me and I do a lot of cooking. I wonder if Ginsu's can be sharpened on a whetstone, or what we like to call a "wet rock?"
Easy to answer that. Does your ginsu have a lot of little "teeth"? If so I wouldn't try to sharpen it. You'll just turn an expensive whetstone into a bunch of dust.
Yay! Love the gear-talk. Great post, Joe. My go-to knife is also a Henckels: Twin Cuisine 8" chef's knife, followed by a paring knife and 7" santoku from the same line.
Great post, Joe! Thanks for the write-up! I've been reading some Anthony Bourdain and he thew the name of Global out there...and the prices look to be very do-able without killing a checking account. I love my 6" santoku, but i wanna get an 8" chef's nice. Birthday is coming up....maybe I'll throw one on my wishlist :P
also gang, look into a fluted blade if you plan on slicing dense veggies like potatoes. They created a pocket of air between the blade and the sliced food so it falls off the blade easier for quicker slicing.
*chef's knife. wow. Not sure how that happened.
Personally not a huge fan of santoku or fluted blades. To me, if I'm going to spend a lot of money on a good knife or a set of knife I'd get a 10 inch chef, 6 inch chef, 12 inch slicing, 3 inch paring knife, 8 inch bread knife, a meat cleaver and a high quality pair of chicken shears. And I'd probably use 2 out of all of those 90% of the time.
I was really hoping you'd throw the info in there about the most expensive knife in the world ;)
Great article and photos. Mine's a Wusthof Classic 20cm hollow edge. Doesn't that sound like the wands in Harry Potter? :)
Thanks for the link on Cut Brooklyn. Just what I need... another reason to spend more money on cooking stuff.
I checked out Cut Brooklyn. You should have warned us that they play hard to get. Looks like you have to check their wall every day or sign up on twitter to even have a chance at getting one. Only makes me want one more...
Here's a good example of what I mean by a high quality Japanese knife http://www.japanesechefsknife.com/HASeriesHonyakiGyokuseikouKyoumen.html
I have a drawer block full of expensive knives - Shun, Wustof, Henckels, etc. But the two knives I reach for most often are both Victorinox stamped chefs knives - an 8" and a 10". Less than 25 bucks on Amazon, easy to sharpen, they hold an edge well, a soft grippy Fibrox handle that stays in your hand even if wet or greasy. And if you drop them and break a tip, at that price they are practically disposable.
see here: http://www.amazon.com/Victorinox-Carbon-Steel-Fibrox-Handle/dp/B000638D32/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335228852&sr=8-1
Have you seen the Kramer knives? They're getting way into the art realm.
http://kramerknives.com/
Looks like he's doing quite a bit of blacksmith work (vs. Cut Brooklyn doing mostly shaping).