[Steveharford]

Not sure if this Is the right place for this post but mods feel free to move if required.
Now. I'm a bit of a knife man. Cooking knives that is. I just love them and have loads. But what I would like most of all is the best chefs knife money can buy. Not saying I can afford it but it's what id like. I have loads of Sabatier and the like but I know there are some great Japanese and german knives out there. Most of us will have heard of Global which once was my dream knife but what can others recommend as a good allrounder? For me the blade needs to be about 8"long as this is the size I use most. It needs to be capable of attaining a good edge, obviously, and better still retaining it. What do you use and are happy with?

[Lardman]

I have an 8" sabatier which I use for everything from slicing bread to carving joints, I also have a very cheap, no name paring knife which I use to slice things like spuds in the palm of my hand.

I keep an edge on the sabatier with a steel and the paring knife I sharpen with an anysharp.

[grendel]

I use a very old carving knife, the steel is superb and it takes a very sharp edge, its true they dont make stuff like they used to.
Grendel

[mumofstig]

I know what you mean gendel - at boot fairs I buy the old bone handled knives, 'cos they really do sharpen up.

I have paid good money for knives in the past that don't seem to sharpen well at all.

[RJR_38]

Sabatier for me, I love the Japanese style knives - a much better shape blade

[Auntiemogs]

I have a set of Global knives (purchased as an indulgence when I was working ).  They were so sharp when I bought them that you wouldn't know you'd cut yourself until there was blood everywhere!    They are very well balanced, and kept their edge for ages, but I'm not sure I'd be able to justify the investment now.... 

One of my favourite knives is an 8" Victorinox Fibrox carving knife, which my local butcher kindly sourced for me.  Keeps a keen edge and the handle is very easy to grip.  If I didn't have my Global knives I'd happily buy more of this brand.

As for the Global ones, my favourites are the G2 (cooks knife) and G5 (vegetable chopper). 

[Chrysalis]

Did you hear The Food Programme on radio 4 this week (Sunday lunchtime and Monday afternoon)?  All about Japanese knives.  Worth listening to!

[chrisnchris]

Global, Sabatier, and the like are great knives.

Be a little different and have one made............highly recommended 

http://portlandworks.co.uk/makers/stuart-mitchell-knives

[RJR_38]

Lovely looking but £500 is a bit out of my price range for a knife!

[chrisnchris]

Lovely looking but £500 is a bit out of my price range for a knife!

But what I would like most of all is the best chefs knife money can buy. Not saying I can afford it but it's what id like.

Just replying to the OP, yes they can be very expensive, and to be fair they aren't all £500
 
I thought I would put forward an alternative to the usual offerings.

Added to the fact that I like individuality, and using something that has been made by someone in Sheffield who has a passion for his craft counts for something.

They probably aren't the "best chef's knife money can buy" so I might have strolled away from the OP there, it's a very subjective.............er............subject 

[diospyros]

Thread title sounds a bit Lord of the Rings... One good knife to chop them all...

I've got three Wenger knives which my ex generously left behind, serrated with orange handles.  What I use as the bread knife is also very good for flipping mince pies out of the pie tin.  They have never been sharpened but still cut very effectively, never get that "sliding off at an angle" thing, the blades have just the right amount of flexibility.  Wenger are the "other" Swiss Army knife.

My mother has the worst knife in the world, it's serrated like a comb, straight cutting edge along a level with the bottom edge of the of the handle, it's HORRIBLE!  She can't understand why I can't use it.

[Annen]

I have a Victorinox kitchen knife which I have had for about 3 years and it is still sharp.  If it needs it sharpens up nicely with the steel.  It has a good comfortable handle and does most jobs except paring(I have another Victorinox one for that).  It was quite reasonably priced, I don't do expensive.

[surbie100]

I have some of these: http://rhinelandcutlery.com/. Beautiful and hold their edge very well. The 6inch Santoku is brilliant.

And they are always discounted & haggleable at Christmas markets...

[Growster...]

My favourite knife - with serrated edge, is a small black plastic-handled one from Sainsbury, which cost 49p!

Mrs Growster uses a Sabatier, which broke once, so I ground it down to about a five inch blade.

But the sharpest one by a mile, is my late mother-in-law's carving knife, which is an 'Encore' by Thomas Turner, Sheffield. I just love it for carving as it is always razor sharp, and the bone handle is as long as the blade, (5.5") which is slightly odd, but makes carving so much easier, but then we don't ever have enormous barons of beef these days! The fork by the way is also beautifully made, and I suppose it goes back to about 1880 or so...

As Mrs Growster always demands that meat is carved with the thickness of a nanometre, and you can see through it, this knife is an absolute winner!

[TheWhiteRabbit]

Bit late to the party but I too have a love of kitchen knives! I have a couple of IO Shen knives - one cleaver and one chefs knife. They are both fabulous to use - whilst the cleaver looks a bit over the top, it's nicely weighted and the big blade weirdly helps you to not cut bits off one's fingers.

The chefs knife is about 8" long and again lovely to use. The downside is both now need sharpening back to their former glory. Even blunt, they still slice way better than my other knives.

Japanese knives are very different to regular knives, the blade again is much shallower (ie thinner) so they are more prone to chipping and using a regular sharpener will dull the blade. So you need to factor in a dedicated sharpener or send them away to get sharpened every year or so.