What Is the Best Chef Knife?

Is there a best chef knife?

The best chef knife is for most the one which fits us best.

The subject of what is the best blade for you has been pondered upon for centuries.
Various people say it is a regular 8" chef knife, some say a good vintage German knife is better than any knife.

Others say that the French with their techniques of cooking have been making the best chef knives for a long time.
I personally suggest that the best blade you can own is a good Japanese
forged knife.
A Japanese forged chef knifemust have a carbon steel metal alloy.
Then it is forged, layered and beaten to make steel layers.

This process gives the knife two extremely important attributes:
1. The knife becomes harder. Try cracking one pencil. Now use 10 pens and brake them. Folding the metal gives you the same results. The blade becomes unbreakable.
2. What happens also is that the knife becomes flexible soit becomes easy to use. Slicing becomes very easy.
The blade withthe variegated surface is not the cutting edge of the knife. The real cutting edge is a thin metal layer which is of different elements; mostly VG-10 metal in Japan.
This is a very tough metal that is only produced in Japan. This toughness allows the knife to stay sharpened much longer than regular stainless steel. This way it is to sharpen as thin as possible.

So is there a best chef knife?
I think it is one that will be most cumfortable for you. A blade that will keep sharp for a very long time, and one that will make your work much more comfortable in the kitchen.

I get asked a lot about the weight of the knife.

Should it be heavy or light?
I believe that the precise knife weight has little meaning. What is more meaningfull is if your knife is well balanced.
When you use a balanced knife, its weight doesn't matter because you are not applying any force.
I will talk about the balance of your knife in the next article.

In conclusion, the best knife is as far as I'm concerned, a good Japanese chef knife.
It will keep for life, and it will keep sharper longer than any German, French or American knife created.
So when you want to get your next chef knife, look around, there are several good brands. The prices start at around 100$ and can go up to several thousands.

My suggestion is that the 100$ - 200$ price range is good value for the home enthusiast chef.
Make sure you look for lifetime guarantee.
This will ensure that you are getting the best tool for yourself.