A Guide to Buying Chef's Knives

A Guide to Chef's Knives for Catering Professionals.

The first rule of buying a knife is to make sure it's made with high quality steel. If you buy a low-quality knife it'll be hard to sharpen and probably become dull pretty quickly.

You should also always look for a knife that’s made from one piece of metal as this gives the knife more balance and makes it much stronger.

Some Chefs choose to stick to a brand they like, others will pick and choose depending on the particular knife. I've always been a big champion of Henckels knives for trainee chefs, as they're great quality blades and pretty reasonably priced compared to some other knife manufacturers

Here's a quick rundown of the different types of knives in my collection to help you get the right tool for the job.

Chef's knife

A Chef's knife can be a very sacred and special thing. There is no 'best' knife and every chef will tell you why they think theirs is better than the rest.

The Chef knife will get the most use of all your knives and will be your go-to for most tasks so it's important you get a good quality blade. Chef knives can vary in size but they'll always be big enough for the majority of your prep work.

I use the Henckels, Professional S, 20 cm and recommend it as a great all-round blade. Henckels is one of the oldest knife manufacturers in the world and they know exactly what they're doing. These Chef's knives are forged from one piece with a seamless transition from bolster to handle.

Santoku knife

The Santoku knife is a Japanese Chef's knife and some prefer to use one of these blades for the majority of their work. The Santoku knife is well balanced and has indentations on the edge of the blade to allow food to slide off easier.

The Kai Shun Premier Santoku knife is a real beauty. It was a little on the expensive side though so If you're looking for a slightly cheaper Santoku knife I'd recommend the Kai Wasabi Black Santoku. These are both beautifully crafted knives which will stay sharp and true for much longer than cheap blades.

Bread knife

This knife has a serrated edge and a long blade to slice neatly through bread without tearing it. You'll need a one of these if you're going to be slicing bread at all - there's nothing worse than trying to saw through a loaf with a cheap, blunt blade.

The Kai Shun Premier Bread knife is the most beautiful knife I own. It also stays super-sharp and goes through bread like butter.

Paring knife

A paring knife is a versatile yet tiny blade, mostly used to peel and de-seed fruit and vegetables. It can also be used for intricate work due to it's small size and has a sharp tip for extra detail. I bought the 'Dalstrong Paring Knife - Gladiator Series' after seeing an ad recently and it's a pretty great blade.

Boning knife

The boning knife has a long, thin blade edge and is designed to take meat clean off the bone easily. It has enough flexibility to get in and around the bones and joints while still being strong enough to cut through the gristle.

I bought the Dalstrong Gladiator Series Boning Knife alongside the paring knife and I'm pretty happy with them. These were worth the little extra money and I'll probably invest in some more Dalstrong Knives for my collection.

This list isn't exhaustive and there are a handful of other knives you may want to purchase for your collection. However this set should be enough for most chefs and don't forget...

Once you've got your collection of knives you'll need to take care of them!

Visit our page on 'How To Look After Your Knives' here.