Hi all.
Collecting and sharpening/maintaining kitchen knives has bin a bit of a hobby for me for some years now.
It’s quite clear that in the knife nerd circles, Japanese knives are considered the best. I own many Japanese knives myself but have never lost my love for the traditional western/Sabatier style chef knife.
It’s my impression that many of you guys cook for a living. And that makes me curious.
What knives do you guys use?
Thanks.
Søren
My pref has been zwilling four stars for almost the last 4 decades. I very much prefer the full bolster and handle shapes… but I am not a collector nor hobbyist of kitchen gear.
Not a knife nerd here, but I do appreciate them. I have a motley crew of all kinds of knives, and have favorites for several uses. Since I don’t have premium quality ones I use an electric Chef’s Choice sharpener, which has been a godsend, IMO. It has three channels, one for Japanese knives.
Like you, I have more than a few knives. I think you are asking what knives we use the most? This goes through my phrases of my cookings. For example, I used to make bread, and eat bread pretty often, so I used my bread knife often, but not anymore.
At this very moment, the knives I use the most are:
I’m not a professional. And, indeed, I’m not at all a good cook. The few knives that I have are generally Sabatier style, mostly purchased at the supermarket (so nothing fancy and comparatively cheap). I’ve no interest in owning the expensive stuff.
Same here… I found this knife at Goodwill for $1.50, I brought it home cleaned and sharpened it on my whetstone. It quickly became my favorite knife. It says “Basics” and “China” on it, so your guess is as good as mine as to what it is or who made it. It does a great job and I throw it in the dishwasher at the end of the night.
An old carbon steel Sabatier is my all time favorite. I look for a fairly flat edge with minimal belly, lightness, and steel that takes a good working edge quickly and easily. A lot of affordable carbon steel gyutos meet those criteria, but I don’t want anything too delicate.
It looks stamped. There are a lot excellent stamped blades out there.
Thanks… I am very much an amateur home cook. It does seem to hold an edge. I’ll put it to work later tonight, chopping onions for dinner.
I’m with most here. Home cook. Got a mess. Kiwis are my main cutters, but I have some Wustof, Dexter, Thai street cleaver, among several others. I like to sharpen with a soap stone. Kiwis sharpen so easily, I have no issue spending a few seconds to get it razorlike again. Love my Kiwi knives.
Currently the knives I use the most:
bigger (most used first):
Tojiro DP 6.7" stainless steel santoku
Tojiro DP 9.4" stainless steel gyuto
Chan Chi Kee KF1303 carbon steel slicer
Victorinox 40547 10.25" stainless steel serrated bread knife (mostly just for cutting bread and sandwiches)
smaller:
Tojiro DP 3.5" stainless steel paring knife
Global 3.5" stainless steel paring knife
I like Tojiro knives but the prices have gone up quite a bit over the last few years. For example, the Tojiro 9.4" gyuto is over double the price on Amazon now from when I bought mine in 2016 (from ~$63 then to ~$140 today).
My knives are all supermarket own brand. They cut pretty much as expected although I am arranging for them to be sharpened professionally as the edges are becoming dull despite running them over a steel.
As a fan of Forged in Fire I love the idea of having a set of kitchen knives that do not exhibit the one major flaw of my supermarket ones namely how sliced food sticks to the smooth surface of the blade. If I could afford an artisan knifesmith set with forge marks on the blade (as those seem to prevent sticking) then I would buy myself a complete collection. I will do that when I finally win the Euromillions lottery top jackpot but until then I have to make do with what I have whether resharpened or not.
Pick them up one at a time, starting with gyuto or chef. They do not need to match, and the more you learn about knives the more you will conclude that different makers may be better choices for different knives, a chef or gyuto, a parer, and a bread slicer will be plenty for most any task, and a good sharpening method (like water stones) and honing method (mainly for knives other than Japanese knives which seem to take better to touch ups on stones IMO) are a great investment. If you buy a honing steel, I highly recommend F. Dick. Their sapphire steel is a great choice. Bingo, the F. Dick pretty much guarantees that the handles in your knife block will not match!
I am a home cook with more knives than I need, and one who reads every thread about knives, but still doesn’t sharpen enough to enjoy it
These are the knives I use the most, especially the boning knives and the Santokus. My favorite is the Zwilling Santoku, but it’s getting a bit long in the tooth! ( or short in the “granton” 
.
And these
…include some colorful and very different knives I recently bought to use while my usual parer was having the tip repaired.
They have have been interesting to learn from during the summer gardening “glut”, but most of the time I prefer a longer and heftier blade.
Dear god, that’s a lot of knives. I think you may have a problem. 
A lovely collection and a lovely storage system. You get an A.
I have a few paring knives, but I find that I don’t use them much. They are very useful when I need it, but I can often go through ten meals without using the paring knives once.
Did I ever told you a story that I bought a set of knives (even with a knife block) from a department store, and none of the knives can be sharpen to take on an edge. This was before I knew how to properly sharpen knives. So I didn’t know anything is wrong.
Later, I started to learn to sharpen knives… I was able to sharpen Tojiro, Dexter, Kiwi, CCK…etc. You name it. I went back to these department store knives (I want to say they are from JC Penny or something), and I still cannot put an edge on them no matter how hard I tried. They would never slice a piece of paper.
Why would that be?
I don’t know. I was at a stage where I could at least put an edge on almost every knives I had (from cheap to expensive), but just failed to put an edge on these department store knives (JC Penny? Sears?) It was a very cheap set of knives. I think it was like $20-30 for a set of ~8 knives with scissors, a cleaver, a honing rod and a knife block. To be honest, a set of toy knives from Fisher Price will cost more. The knives have the looks of this image below.
