This knife is absolutely fantastic. I originally set out to buy a knife to make sushi, which traditionally calls for a blade with tempered steel, or contemporarily a blade with holes, to minimize friction, otherwise, the drag created by the sides of the blade will deform the rolls as you cut. Since I was planning on this being a large, $200 purchase, I wanted a knife that would do a lot more than just sushi. Eventually, I came across this knife and every test and review I could find indicated that this knife beat out every other one in my price range, with significant room to spare. I spent 10-20 hours researching materials, manufacturers, forging processes, and so on until I came across this knife. Normally tempered steel has an edge against stainless steel, since it's far sharper, more resistant to dulling, and the material is smoother, resulting in less drag as you cut. Stainless steel, on the other hand, is heavily rust-resistant but achieves that by mixing in other metals such as chromium or nickel. This process causes stainless steel's molecular structure to look more like unsmoothed asphalt than glass, with chunks of chromium protruding from the surface. Victorinox managed to forge this stainless steel knife without those molecular protrusions, and as a result, the blade glides like tempered steel. Furthermore, the edge on mine has managed to keep through 3 full months of heavy use and cuts paper just as effortlessly as when I first bought it. On top of all that, because the blade is stainless steel it sharpens and deburrs easier than tempered. Everything about this knife is fantastic: the price point, the edge, the curvature, the glide; everything. My only regret is that I went with the black Fibrox handle instead of the Rosewood. A blade this nice deserves a display-worthy handle, which I've linked below. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0019WZEUE/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=283YFBNXC4VQN&coliid=I3IDRCX4OABLEA&psc=1 Read more
I’m not a professional chef, so take my statement with a grain of salt. I am, however, an obsessive researcher. So before dropping the $40-ish on this knife, I spent way more time than I should have, doing my due diligence on this purchase. First off, this knife is replacing a Farberware Edgekeeper 8-Inch Forged Triple Riveted Chef Knife in High Carbon-Stainless Steel. In the picture I posted, you see both knives side by side, the Farberware on the left, the Victorinox on the right. That Farberware runs less than $20 on here, or in stores. And to be honest, it feels like a sub twenty-dollar knife. When compared to this Victorinox knife, however, it feels like there’s more than a twenty-to-thirty-dollar difference. The Victorinox came highly recommended by America’s Test Kitchen, which, in all honesty, was enough for me to pull the trigger on it, but my compulsive nature had me go down the rabbit hole of even more reviews, message boards, Reddit, YouTube etc. The Victorinox is lighter, coming in at 5.7oz to Farberware’s 6.8oz. The spine on the Farberware is thicker, but not by much, at a little over 1/16th inch, where the Victorinox looks to be right at 1/16th inch. While the Farberware is a forged steel, and thicker and heavier, it also has more flex and bend to it, which is surprising. I have larger than average hands for a man, and the Victorinox feels better in my hand than the Farberware does. It’s also much easier to wield, possibly due to balance and weight, but also due to the edge. The shape of this knife also means that when I use it, even with my big hands and banana fingers, I can chop straight down, and my knuckles won’t hit the cutting board, whereas they will on the Farberware. I watched a video of Gordon Ramsey dicing an onion, and then did what the video showed. With the Farberware, even though it was sharp enough to shave the hair from my arms (this is not an exaggeration, I have the Work Sharp Ken Onion Edition powered belt sharpener, it will make a butter knife sharp enough to shave with), it was not as low effort to dice an onion as Chef Ramsey made it out to be, and that extra effort means pushing the knife through the onion, needing to make wider cuts, and an overall messier experience. I won’t say the Victorinox was as smooth as Chef Ramsey is, but it was MUCH closer to that level of low effort, slicing through the onion without having to exert much force at all, making very clean, close together slices. The Victorinox came out of the box exceptionally sharp. In the two and a half months I’ve been using it, I’ve yet to sharpen it at all, and it still feels the same as it did right out of the box. The Farberware was not sharp when I bought it, and I have to sharpen it every couple of weeks to keep it usable. The Victorinox knife also claims to be dishwasher safe. I don’t know, I don’t own a dishwasher. But I also wouldn’t put it through the dishwasher if I did have one. I just wipe the knife as I use it, and then give it a gentle soapy hand wash and rinse, hand dry it and hang it up on the magnetic knife thingy. It doesn’t take that much effort and the knife doesn’t sit wet (or moist) for a while and increase the likelihood of rust forming. I will add a caveat to my overall buy-it-now review. My girlfriend doesn’t like this knife. Her dislike of this stems mostly from its size, though, this is a pretty big knife. She prefers a much cheaper, Kiwi brand knife we also have, because she feels it is easier to use, due to its shape and overall size. If you need a new chef’s knife, or just don’t love the one you have, or, if you haven’t ever tried this knife, and think chefs on TV effortlessly slicing through fibrous vegetables like a hot knife through butter isn’t realistic, get this knife, and prepare to be shocked. *I bought this knife with my own, hardly earned money. I wasn’t compensated in any way for this review. HOWEVER, if, say Victorinox, wanted to send me one of everything they make, I wouldn’t complain. Read more
