Best Chef’s Knife 2025: The Top Blades Chosen by Experts

What we think of the Global Chef’s Knife

This was the first knife associate food editor Kendra Vaculin put in her set of real knives after years of cooking with a set of multicolored Ikea blades. “I love how malleable Global knives feel in my hand despite their size,” she says. That balanced malleability is due to the fact that, instead of a full tang (a blade that runs the full length of the hand), the knife’s hollow ergonomic handle is filled with just enough sand to offset the weight of the knife blade. That weight distribution makes this knife feel lighter than it is. Ultimately it’s the handle that cost it a spot in our recommendations because, while it’s a quality knife, no doubt, the metal handle can be tricky for people with larger hands and overall is just a little slippery, especially with wet hands. If you do use it, make sure to dry off thoroughly when cleaning your cutting board between prep tasks.

What we think of the Hedley & Bennett chef’s knife

This knife is well-balanced and very comfortable to grip and maneuver thanks to the seamless transition between its handle and blade. It was sharp out of the box and performed well in all of our tests—plus it’s held up well over time according to the folks in the test kitchen we spoke with who have used it frequently. But at $115 at the time of writing we think it’s worth paying $30 more to spring for our winning pick from Mac, which outperformed this knife in our testing and felt a touch more well-constructed overall. That said, if the fun array of colors entices you, you won’t be disappointed by this knife.

What we think of the Miyabi Kaizen knife

This knife was perfectly balanced and, between its sturdy handle and thin, sloping blade, allowed for excellent precision cuts. We appreciated this knife’s Damascus pattern, adding visual appeal, sturdiness, and corrosion resistance, but ultimately it didn’t perform quite as well as our top picks and cost more.

What we think of the Shun Kiritsuke

Shun’s update to the traditional kiritsuke knife adds a bit of swell to the belly to create a more hybrid-style chef’s knife. We really enjoyed the performance of this knife, and it excelled at slicing, push cuts, and julienne work. Ultimately, this knife wasn’t quite as versatile as Shun’s Classic Chef’s Knife, and its shape wasn’t ideal for dicing an onion or breaking down a whole squash. If you have the budget for a second chef’s knife, however, Shun’s Classic Kiritsuke is a great companion to a more traditional chef’s knife.

What we think of the Shun Kazahana Chef’s Knife

This knife was just as sharp as the other Shun knives that we tested, but the handle was bulkier, and the steel lacked the Damascus pattern that Shun is well known for. Our biggest gripe was with the handle. The tang jutted out a bit beyond the handle scales and caused some friction and rubbing when we used the knife for extended periods. We did appreciate the knife’s overall shape though—the Kazahana series features a slightly more downward-sloped spine, creating a halfway point between a Western chef’s knife and a gyuto.

What we think about the New West Knife Works Chef’s Knife

Beautiful, functional, and comfortable to use, New West Knife Works’ chef’s knife aced our cutting tests. Its edge also held up excellently after thorough use, requiring less honing than most of its competition. Its sky high price point makes it tricky to recommend, however, making this knife better suited for true enthusiasts.

What we think about the Steelport Chef’s Knife

With its carbon steel edge and proprietary heat treatment, Steelport’s chef’s knife is razor-sharp and sliced its way through our tests with flying colors. Without stainless steel cladding, however, this knife will rust if not dried thoroughly and oiled consistently. It mimics a more traditional kitsune shape with its steep tip and finger groove at the heel. It’s also heavy, which might be harder to control for some users. Finally, its high price tag makes it better for picky knife obsessives than the average home cook.

What we think about the Seki Magoroku 10,000 Series Chef’s Knife

This knife’s beauty outshines its performance. We loved the mirror-polished exterior steel layer that houses a VG-Max core, but ultimately, its shape made the 10,000 series from Seki Magoroku harder to use than the competition. Both the spine and handle curve upward from the bolster, creating a mild V-shape which made it difficult to tell exactly where the cutting edge was. The handle was also fairly short, which will force you to choke up into a pinch grip without many other grip options. It did cut well in most tests, but we think there are other knives in this price point that are more versatile.

What we think of the Seki Magoruoku Akane Chef’s Knife

This knife’s blade was well-designed for delicate slicing, but it struggled to cut harder vegetables. Even at its extremely approachable price point, the construction felt cheap overall, and the handle wasn’t very balanced. This made it hard to control and affected the knife’s overall comfort level when using it for prolonged periods.

What we think about the J.A. Henckels Classic Chef’s Knife

Sharp, sturdy, and with a comfortable (if blocky) handle, we generally liked the performance of J.A. Henckels’ Classic chef’s knife. But it struggled some against tougher vegetables and our favorite knives outperformed it in most tests.

What we think about the Misen Chef’s Knife

We really liked Misen’s hybrid shape and its comfortable handle. It was sharp out of the box, diced onions, and made clean cuts through paper. Ultimately, it didn’t hold its edge as well as our top picks in the same price range though.

What we think about the Our Place Everyday Chef’s Knife

We love that the Our Place chef’s knife comes with a blade protector, and if you’re a fan of a pronounced belly, the knife will likely feel nice and steady for rocking motions like mincing herbs and dicing onions. And the full-tang construction provides proper balance and support when dealing with hardy vegetables and proteins. We found the grip design to be a little strange though — it’s a “guided grip,” seemingly to encourage a pinch grip on the bolster, but perhaps it’s meant for particularly small hands.

What we think about the Material Chef’s Knife

Materials’ entry into the chef knife game is impressive on the page—san mai construction with a high-carbon core, hybrid-style blade shape, and comfortable handle. Unfortunately, this knife snagged and tore during the paper test and required more force to cut through the squash. It’s also priced similarly to knives that tested better.

What we think of the Wüsthof Classic Chef’s Knife

The Wüsthof Classic is a classic for a reason—its razor-sharpness out of the box, comfortable handle design, and high-quality proprietary steel make it an excellent kitchen workhorse. The only reason it wasn’t a top pick is the price point—as one of the more expensive knives that we tested, we found it just wasn’t quite as versatile as our other pricier picks, and some of our mid-tier tested knives performed just as well. Still, if price isn’t a factor and you’re interested in a knife that will serve you well for years, the Wüsthof Classic is a great option.

What we think about the Wüsthof Gourmet Chef’s Knife

Wüsthof’s Gourmet Knife (a step down from the Classic) struggled to perform up to the legendary knife brand’s reputation. Instead of being forged, like Wüsthof’s Classic Series, the Gourmet series is stamped. This means it lacks the same edge geometry that’s forged into the Classic series, affecting the knife’s ability to hold as sharp of an edge. It also lacked a bolster, and the handle scales were clunky. Finally, this knife struggled against pepper skin and tore the paper instead of slicing cleanly through it, leading to poor performance scores all around.

What we think of the Zwilling Professional Chef’s Knife

Zwilling’s Professional chef’s knife was well-balanced and easily sliced through paper with a sharp edge, but the German design means a thicker blade that required more force to cut through an onion. In general, it landed in the middle of the pack for its performance, but its higher price point kept it from being a knife we’d recommend.

What we think of the Messermeister Oliva Elite chef’s knife

Though we found it quite beautiful, Messermeister’s Oliva Elite’s wooden handle was extra long, making it unwieldy and harder to control. It was moderately sharp in our tests, but the handle was a dealbreaker.

What we think of the Five Two Essential Kitchen Chef’s Knife

Five Two is Food52’s in-house brand, and though it comes in a variety of Instagram-ready colors, this was the heaviest knife we tested by far. The edge was sharp, but it was unwieldy in our cutting tests. Its thicker blade required more force than ideal for cutting through squash, and its weight squished the tomatoes before the edge cut through the skin.

What we think of the Made In Chef’s Knife

Made In’s knife struggled to hold its edge after repeated use, though it was sharp enough out of the box to easily cut through squash in our testing. Because it dulled easily, this knife couldn’t handle delicate tasks like slicing tomatoes as well as the competition.

What we think of the Dalstrong Chef’s Knife

This knife is hefty. Its blade has one of the largest bellies of any of the knives we’ve tested, its handle is quite long and bulky, and it is notably heavy. That said, there is some merit to having a knife like this, particularly for tasks like cutting meat, winter squash, or bones, and we found this knife to be pretty sharp out of the box.

What we think of the Shan Zu chef’s knife

This knife is also much heavier than most of our top picks, but it is nicely balanced and performed relatively well in our tests. However, for nearly $100 we think you’re better off spending just a bit more and going with the Tojiro or the Shun, or saving your money and picking up the Mercer or the Victorinox for half the price.

What we think of the Bulat Chef’s Knife

This knife from Bulat was one of the dullest knives we tested out of the box. It snagged on the paper slice and its overall bulk made it prone to crushing tomatoes instead of slicing through their skin. It also struggled to cleanly slice through onion skin.

What we think of the Brandless Chef’s Knife

While the price point might be tempting, Brandless’ chef’s knife isn’t worth your time. Dull, slippery, and clumsy, it performed the worst out of any knife we tested—right in line with what you might expect from its bottom-shelf sticker price.

What’s the difference between Western- and Japanese-style knives?

Western-style knives

Also called German-style knives, these are double-beveled (meaning both sides are angled inward, meeting at the blade’s edge) and originated in Western Europe. German knives’ curved blades lend themselves to a rocking motion during which the tip of the blade does not leave the cutting board. Western blades are also typically thicker than those of Japanese knives, and most are beveled at the same angle on both sides, which makes them easier to sharpen. That’s particularly advantageous because these knives are typically made of a softer steel than their Japanese counterparts, which makes them less brittle and more durable—but also means they require sharpening them more often. They also tend to be more heavy-duty, which some people think makes them feel more stable but we think is really a point of personal preference.

Japanese-style knives

Traditional Japanese knives are typically single bevel (one side is straight while the other is angled), feature thin blades made of carbon steel, and are often used by professional restaurant chefs. Their light weight and hard blades make them best for people who value sharpness and precision over power. They also tend to hold their edge for longer. The straighter shape of that edge means these knives lend themselves to an up-and-down slicing motion rather than the rocking technique you’d use with a Western-style knife.

There are also Western-style Japanese knives like the Mac: These versatile knives are double beveled, but made of a more durable steel that takes less work to maintain. Some of these hybrid knives (though not the ones featured here) have asymmetrical edges, sharpened to two different angles, which contributes to the sharp blade. Two common shapes in the US are the gyuto (which means “beef sword”) and the shorter santoku knife.

Pat Alfiero likes and uses both single and double bevels, but his chef’s knives, paring knives, and butchering knives are all 50-50. “It’s just easier to maintain and sharpen,” he says. He also notes that it can be harder to learn to cut straight with a single bevel, particularly for vegetables: “You always have that angle pushing you backward. Your knife kind of wants to go with that big hard bevel, so I prefer 50-50 for that stuff.”

What’s the deal with steel?

The more you start researching chef’s knives, the more likely you’ll start seeing manufacturers and reviews talking about the type of steel the knife was made from. Steel is a unique metal—at its base, steel is an alloy of iron and carbon, improving the strength and flexibility of iron. When heat treated and quenched, steel hardens. The harder the steel, the easier it is to add an edge that stays sharp for longer. The number one thing that affects how hard steel can get is its carbon content. More carbon, harder steel. There is a drawback to higher carbon levels though.Pure carbon steel is susceptible to rust and corrosion, and the harder steel gets, the more brittle it becomes.

That’s where stainless steel comes along. By adding other minerals like chromium and molybdenum to the alloy, stainless steel becomes rust-proof and corrosion-resistant. But the more minerals you add to the alloy, the less room there is for carbon, which means softer steel that’s harder to sharpen. The most common stainless steel you see in a kitchen is 18/10 stainless steel, which refers to 18% chromium and 10% nickel. This steel is extremely rust-resistant and commonly used for silverware and cookware. It only has 0.1% carbon content, though, making it nearly impossible to sharpen into a knife that can cut cleanly and stay sharp. For kitchen knives, the two types of steel you see commonly used are labeled as carbon steel and high-carbon stainless steel.

Carbon Steel

Carbon steel is a pure form of steel with little or no additives. It’s a popular type of steel for high-end knives from Japan and can be sharpened to a finer edge, which improves its cutting ability and the ability for that edge to stay sharper longer. A popular carbon steel variety is White #2 steel, and it has around 1.2% carbon content. Because carbon steel doesn’t have corrosion-resistant additives, though, it’s very susceptible to rust, and it’s more likely to chip when cutting through harder material, like bone. It also tends to be more expensive. Knives made from carbon steel are better options for professional chefs and knife enthusiasts who don’t mind the extra upkeep or the initial cost.

High-Carbon Stainless Steel

Most high-end knife manufacturers have found a compromise between carbon steel and stainless steel, usually referred to as high-carbon stainless steel. The name is somewhat of an oxymoron—steel isn’t able, generally, to qualify as “high-carbon” if it has enough additives to give it a stainless quality. Rather than being high-carbon steel that is stainless, high-carbon stainless steel more describes a stainless steel that has a higher carbon percentage than most stainless steels. In any case, the term is more descriptive than scientific—there aren’t strict definitions for where the cutoff percentage is for carbon content for something to be carbon steel or not. Nearly all the knives we tested are made from high-carbon stainless steel, and many manufacturers have their own unique formulas they use to tweak corrosion resistance and hardness. Other manufacturers use traditional knife-making techniques to work around this. For example, the VG-MAX and VG-10 steel used in the Shun and Tojiro winners both have 1.0% carbon content, a bit less than White #2 steel. They also have added minerals like chromium and molybdenum to give them some rust resistance, but they’re still more susceptible to wear than the 18/10 in your silverware drawer. To protect the higher-carbon knife edge, Shun uses a Damascus forging process, in which corrosion-resistant steel is folded into higher-carbon steel in multiple layers. You can see the unique wood burl pattern of those on the outside of those knives. Tojiro uses a method called san mai, where the VG-10 core is jacketed in a layer of corrosion-resistant stainless steel on either side, giving protection to the outside edges of the blade while retaining a harder edge.

How do you sharpen a chef’s knife?

Once you’ve found your perfect chef’s knife, show it the respect worthy of a prized kitchen tool. You can get your knives professionally sharpened, of course, but we’re of the opinion that you should only do that once a year, max—think of a professional sharpening as a haircut, whereas sharpening at home is more of a trim. A professional sharpener will remove more steel from the cutting edge than you would at home, which can affect the longevity of your knife. What tools do you need to maintain that new knife’s sharp edge at home, you might ask? Two things: a honing rod and a knife sharpener. And no, they are not interchangeable.

Zwilling J.A. Henckels Double Cut Honing Steel

What is a knife sharpener?

A knife sharpener—ideally a whetstone—removes some of the blade’s steel through friction to create a new, sharper cutting edge.