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Building your own custom knife collection is ideal, but that process can be time consuming and expensive. Many of the best brands on the market offer fantastic kitchen knife sets that include the practical knives every kitchen needs.
We tested 12 of the best kitchen knife sets side-by-side. We used every set in our own kitchens to chop up pounds of onions and potatoes, dozens of loaves of bread, and more steaks than we can count. We backed up our experience with technical tests in our GearLab to measure key metrics of build quality like steel hardness and factory sharpness.
The Zwilling 7-Piece Set offers a great selection of four essential knives, including a chef's knife, utility, paring, and bread knife, as well as the ever-essential honing rod. The knives in the set are sharp out of the box, and the block even includes extra room to expand your collection.
If you still want a high-quality set on a budget, the Victorinox 8-Piece Set also includes a chef's knife, paring, and bread knife, as well as an 8-inch filet, 10-inch slicing knife, and a honing rod. Although the build quality isn't quite as high, the practicality and cutting performance are nearly on par with the knives in the Zwilling set.
While a honing rod will get you most of the way there most of the time, eventually you'll need a knife sharpener to keep your set clean, sharp, and cutting safely. If you are on a mission to build a custom knife set, we've also reviewed top-quality chef's knives.
Editor's Note: We updated our kitchen knife review on March 20, 2025, to include more graphs of testing data we collected, as well as additional insight from our testers.
Construction Method: Forged | Country of Origin: Germany
PROS
Great essential knife selection
High-quality steel is sharp and holds an edge
Expandable with room for extra knives
CONS
The chef's knife has an unusually rounded blade
The versatile Zwilling Professional S 7-Piece is our top choice for a well-balanced overall kitchen knife set. “It has the best selection of knives for any new cook,” says our lead tester. Additionally, Zwilling left several empty slots for additional knives so that you can customize this knife set further based on your specific needs. It also has room for six steak knives. All of the included knives are high quality, sharp, durable, and comfortable to hold. The knife block is attractive and looks right at home on any kitchen counter. The all-important chef's knife scored highly in all of our tests, making it a great primary tool in your kitchen. “The utility knife has a partial gyuto shape with a larger blade area, which makes this style of knife incredibly versatile,” our lead tester noted, and the bread knife was one of our favorites we tested. The included hone will keep your knives sharp and feels safe and comfortable to use.
SPECIFICATIONS
Steak Knives
No
Types of Knives Included
4; chef, utility, paring, bread
Hone
Yes
Kitchen Shears
Yes
Reported Steel Hardness (HRC)
57
The chef's knife, while being high quality and extremely sharp, has a particularly steep curve at the end of the blade. “This felt awkward at first,” commented one tester, “but I was eventually able to adjust my cutting style without too much issue.” The chef's knife also does not feature a full bolster. This differs from the traditional German style and is, in large part, purely a preference issue among users. We also found the included kitchen shears to be just average. They performed adequately in our testing but felt cheap compared to the knives. The Zwilling Professional S 7-Piece comes as an incomplete set, with several empty spots for additional knives and a set of steak knives. If you are looking to take a much more customized approach to your kitchen knife set, the Wusthof Classic 6-Piece is another great option. Although we felt there were too many holes in its lineup, the quality of the knives included is unassailable and would be a great starting set for the DIYer.
Empty Slots in Your Block?
Many knife sets on the market include knife blocks that purposely come with empty slots. This is important to note because those who desire the finished look of a full knife block may have to make supplemental purchases. However, this will also allow you to customize your knife block to fit your specific needs. Most manufacturers produce knives that match your set and will fit right in. Eat a lot of fish? Perhaps a filet knife is a perfect addition. Cook a lot of veggies? A nakiri knife would fit in beautifully.
The Zwilling Professional Block Set provides a great overall set of knives, well-balanced, sharp, and durable.
Construction Method: Stamped | Country of Origin: Switzerland
PROS
Exceptional value for money
Comfortable nylon handles
CONS
Knife handles don't rest straight in the block
Nylon handles look and feel cheap
The Victorinox Classic 8-Piece is our top recommendation for the best budget knife set. It's made by the same company that manufactures the famous Swiss army knife with a reputation for quality at a reasonable price, and this 7-piece set is a shining example of that. “These knives are sharp, comfortable, and eminently capable of performing any task in the kitchen,” said our lead tester. The blades are made of high-carbon stainless steel and employ a unique nylon-formed handle. The handles are very comfortable, for the most part, and were easy to firmly grip, wet or dry. The blades themselves were sharp, precise, and held their edge reasonably well throughout our testing. As with the Zwilling 7-Piece, the Victorinox 8-Piece set comes with two empty knife slots to expand your collection based on your needs. For those who want more, Victorinox also sells a larger 22-piece knife set that includes steak knives.
SPECIFICATIONS
Steak Knives
No
Types of Knives Included
5; chef, paring, bread, filet, slicing
Hone
Yes
Kitchen Shears
Yes
Reported Steel Hardness (HRC)
56
The Victorinox 8-Piece doesn't come with a utility knife. Instead, it includes a filet and a 10-inch slicing knife. “Although a utility knife is more versatile, swapping that for a filet and slicing knife is an acceptable tradeoff,” said one tester, further noting that this choice doesn't drastically impact usability. Another nitpick is that the knives don't sit perfectly straight in the block and are noticeably lopsided. This doesn't affect performance at all, but those who care about looks should take note. Our testers also found the handle quality to be inconsistent across the knife set. “The nylon handle that was comfortable on the chef knife felt awkward on the smaller paring knife,” commented one tester. If this Victorinox set isn't a good fit for you, we also loved the budget-friendly Mercer Genesis 6-Piece. It combines a similar performance and price with a more traditional rubber handle and an attractive wood and glass knife block. Overall, the performance and price of the Victorinox make it a compelling choice for any consumer on a budget who still needs good-quality knives.
While not perfect, the Victorinox Classic Block is affordable, and the included blades get the job done for less.
Construction Method: Forged | Country of Origin: Japan
PROS
Exceptionally sharp and precise
Damascus pattern blade
Excellent balance
Attractive acacia wood storage block
CONS
Very pricey
No bread knife
The Shun Classic 5-Piece is an attractive and capable knife set and is our upgrade pick for a premium set. This set contains Shun's chef knife, which we loved so much in our chef knife testing, in addition to a matched paring and utility knife. “These knives are the sharpest we tested and held an edge longer than any other in our testing,” lauded our lead tester. They were equally as capable of cutting delicate herbs as they were of thick butternut squash. All three knives included in this set are very ergonomic, and all our testers consistently rated them near the top for comfort. The wonderfully contoured Pakkawood handle and the Damascus pattern on the blades are eye-catching and represent their unique manufacturing process. In short, we found the Shun knives to excel at nearly every task in the kitchen.
SPECIFICATIONS
Steak Knives
No
Types of Knives Included
3; chef, utility, paring
Hone
Yes
Kitchen Shears
No
Reported Steel Hardness (HRC)
60.5
Most of our complaints have to do with utility as a set, and our lead tester summed it up bluntly. “Although the knives are undeniably great, the limited selection lacks versatility.” There are no kitchen shears and no bread knife — although we found that the Shun chef knife was often sharp enough to cut bread even without serrations — and only one extra slot to expand your repertoire. The Shun Classic 5-Piece also has the highest price per knife. That said, we feel that there is still good value given the fantastic quality of the Shun knives. They just don't give all the capabilities that people often think of when buying a knife set. The Shun 5-Piece should be a top choice for anyone looking for the highest-quality knife. Its beauty and performance are sure to attract attention in any kitchen. If you are looking for a more extensive knife selection, the Global 7-Piece Takashi is another great option. These knives offer good cutting feel and blade quality, but they come in a larger set that gives them more versatility.
With some of the sharpest, most impressive blades we tested, this set is top-tier quality.
Construction Method: Stamped | Country of Origin: India
PROS
Extraordinary sharpness and precision
Premium quality
Includes a set of quality steak knives
CONS
Finishing on knives is poor, with sharp edges and unpolished handles
Expensive
The Henckels Statement 12-Piece is a great value for folks who want to buy a knife set that includes quality knives and a set of steak knives. We've found that Henckels tends to make very good value knives that perform well across the board, which is definitely the case here. “Each knife's cutting performance was by far the best in its price range,” our lead tester noticed. The included steak knives were a tester favorite — they are sharp enough to cut through any sort of meat while still being delicate enough not to feel out of place at the holiday dining table. Not only that, but this set includes a great assortment of knives for nearly any task.
SPECIFICATIONS
Steak Knives
Yes (6)
Types of Knives Included
4; chef, santoku, bread, paring
Hone
Yes
Kitchen Shears
No
Reported Steel Hardness (HRC)
54
On the negative side, the handles felt a bit clumsy. “I wouldn't call them uncomfortable per se, but they have a very unfinished feel and are distinctly utilitarian,” one tester commented. The detailed finishing of the set was also second-tier. We found many small blemishes and imperfections that, while they wouldn't detract from their ability to prepare food, definitely make them stand out in a less attractive way. The Henkels 12-Piece also lacks a set of kitchen shears or even a place for one in the block. Despite its minor drawbacks, the Henckels is a great choice for anyone who wants a reasonably priced kitchen knife set that delivers nearly all the tools needed for their kitchen in one go. Another option that includes a set of steak knives would be the Chicago Cultery Fusion 17-Piece. Although their cutting performance isn't quite on par with the Henckels, they still performed fairly well in our tests, and we found them to be pretty comfortable in hand. Additionally, the Chicago 17-Piece came with more steak knives than the Henckels, as well as a filet knife.
The Henckels International knife set is a great budget buy, including a full set of steak knives, though the design leaves a bit to be desired.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
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Measuring the hardness (HRC) of each blade to help us better understand its construction.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
How We Tested
We've been testing kitchen knives since 2020, and with every update, we're only interested in testing the most popular and most interesting kitchen knives on the market. We dug deep to find what others were saying about their performance and which features are essential to a good knife. We selected the top sets and purchased them all at market price, then got to work cutting, chopping, slicing, dicing, and you better believe — eating! With this latest update, we headed back to the kitchen to conduct new side-by-side tests on the original lineup and some sharp new contenders (pun intended). We cut pounds upon pounds of food to test sharpness and precision, closely examined craftsmanship and quality, found balance points, assessed handle ergonomics, and even considered the style and function of each storage block. Never one to believe what we're told, we then took them to our lab to confirm many of their specific details including steel hardness (HRC), blade sharpness, and chef knife blade angles. Finally, we combined all the data we gathered and selected the best options available to bring you the ideal kitchen knives for your cooking, serving, and eating styles.
Checking the sharpness of chef knife blades.
We used our benchtop Rockwell hardness tester to verify the manufacturer's claims.
Using a goniometer to see the precise angles of each chef knife blade we tested.
From the kitchen to the lab, we tested and evaluated each set of kitchen knives extensively.
Our testing of kitchen knife sets is divided into four mutually exclusive testing metrics:
Practicality and Set Utility (30% of overall score weighting)
Cutting Performance (30% weighting)
Ergonomics (25% weighting)
Build Quality (15% weighting)
Why Trust GearLab
Our testing of kitchen knives is led by Review Editor, Bradley Nichols, who has always loved finding and making delicious foods. With his passion for traveling and trying new things, his kitchen is often full of the smells of experimental dishes bubbling away on the stovetop. Over the decades, he has become the chef for all family gatherings and get-togethers with friends. Whether he's perfecting his brownie recipe or sous viding steak for the holidays, Brad is always tinkering in the kitchen and sets a high bar for all his implements and tools. As a result, everyone in his social circle seeks his advice on what kitchen gadgets are worth buying. It's this level of scrutiny that he applies to testing kitchen knives, putting every set through a battery of tests and in a variety of hands to learn which is the ideal set for any cook.
Testing a paring knife by cutting "in the hand"
We tested steak knives by serving our friends and family a hearty steak dinner.
We tested how knives handled small, challenging cuts.
We tested every knife in every set and evaluated them on their performance — as well as what key components they may be missing.
Analysis and Test Results
We tested each kitchen knife set with a series of carefully constructed tests evaluating four mutually exclusive metrics. These tests were designed to give an overall score based on a combination of practicality, utility, comfort, and value. In the following section, we will break down the specific metrics and tests and discuss the details of how each set performed.
What's the Best Value?
As we tested these knife sets, we found that there was a strong correlation between price and performance. In essence, more dollars per knife spent will generally get you better quality knives. The higher-end knives started sharper and required much less frequent sharpening. The less expensive sets tended to contain many more knives, but we found them to often be of low quality.
The Global is a great choice for your kitchen... if you can find it at a good price.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
The Global 7-Piece Takashi is one of our favorite overall sets. The knives we tested were beautiful, made with quality, and amazingly sharp. However, the price of this set varies far too much for us to give them a firm recommendation. Still, if you are willing to wait on a good sale, they are worth picking up.
Careful measurements of each blade give us an idea of how they might perform.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
The Victorinox Classic 8-Piece is also a standout for value, although this was no surprise given the brand's reputation. If you can deal with the sub-par looks, they will get you the most knife for your money.
More Isn't Always Better
Picking up a set of kitchen knives is almost always a budget-conscious decision. While it's tempting to grab a large set of knives for a very cheap price — like the almost absurdly inexpensive Amazon Basics 14-Piece set we tested — some low prices really are too good to be true. This particular set impressed us with its exceptionally poor cutting performance and we do not recommend it to anyone, on any budget.
The Mercer Genesis 6-Piece is another set that we loved. It surprised us with how high quality it felt, and it even comes with a unique-looking knife block style. It scored just below the Victorinox 8-Piece in that particular price range, but if you want a beautiful glass knife block on your countertop, it's worth considering.
The Mercer set features this beautiful glass-framed knife block.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
Not Ready to Commit?
Don't have the budget to buy an entire knife set? We recommend checking out our chef's knife review and buying just one solid budget-friendly chef's knife. You will be much happier with one or two good knives rather than ten poor-quality ones.
Practicality and Set Utility
What makes a good kitchen knife set? You need a variety of different tools to complete most kitchen tasks comfortably. Of course, a good chef's knife is the starting point, but adding a few more tools will make cooking in your kitchen much more enjoyable. This metric is our most subjective rating, but we will walk through our logic so that you can make your own judgment on knife selection.
Key Tests for Practicality and Utility
Product
Knife Selection
Versatility
Zwilling Professional S 7-Piece
10
9
Victorinox Classic 8-Piece
10
9
Global 7 Piece Takashi
8
9
Mercer Culinary Genesis 6 Piece
6
8
Henckels International 12 Piece
6
8
Chicago Cutlery Fusion 17 Piece
8
6
Ginsu Gourmet 8 Piece
8
5
Shun Classic 5 Piece
6
6
Wusthof Classic 6-Piece
6
6
Amazon Basics 14 Piece
10
2
Cuisinart 15 Piece Stainless Steel
6
4
McCook Stainless Steel 15 Piece
6
4
We judged each set by the selection of tools included. A low score here doesn't mean that the knives are low quality, but that the set may not include all the tools needed in the average home kitchen and may require supplementary purchases. What we look for are these core items that can handle almost any job you'll want to accomplish at home:
Chef Knife — A proper chef knife is almost a must-have for any knife set. This is the first knife most people reach for and a jack-of-all-trades in the kitchen.
Paring Knife — A small, 3-4 inch blade that is perfect for delicate tasks like coring a tomato or cutting the top off of a strawberry. Ideal for cutting things held in your hand.
Utility Knife — A utility knife is larger than a paring but smaller than a chef. Useful when you need more finesse. Also, it is great as a spare knife when you have helpers in the kitchen.
Bread Knife — A long (8-10 inches) serrated knife used primarily to cut bread products. The large teeth along the blade help to cut cleanly through everything from a hard, crusty loaf to a soft white bread.
Kitchen Shears — Used for everything from cutting sheets of parchment to cutting through ribs on a chicken carcass.
Hone — Indispensable in the kitchen, and used to keep your blades sharp and safe.
Testing out the various knives in multiple applications to see how they perform.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
Other knives, such as a filet, tourné, or slicing knife, are useful to have but very situational, specific, and not useful for all home chefs. Steak knives are another popular addition to many sets, but not every set we tested includes them. Of course, we had to test the usefulness of the ones that do by making a classic steak dinner for the whole family.
What a delicious way to test steak knives. We sure enjoyed it!
Credit: Natalie Kafader
Using this as a guide, we found that the Zwilling Professional S 7-Piece contained exactly what we wanted in a kitchen knife set. Seven pieces, giving you just what you need with no extraneous knives and still leaving room for expansion with extra slots. The Victorinox Classic 8-Piece also contains all these pieces as well as a filet knife.
The Zwilling Professional S set has all the essentials and room to grow.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
The Henckels 12-Piece has an excellent selection, swapping a santoku for a utility but lacking kitchen shears. The Global 7-Piece Takashi also has a great selection, again only lacking kitchen shears but adding a santoku.
This durable and sizable knife storage blocks matches the knives they house.
Credit: Carissa Stanz
The Shun 5-Piece contains three of our favorite knives from this test as well as a hone, but it lacks kitchen shears and a bread knife. The Mercer Genesis 6-Piece contains every knife we wanted to see but, surprisingly, is missing a hone and kitchen shears. Chicago Cutlery 17-Piece includes a good selection that we liked, including all the basics and a few extras, such as a whopping eight steak knives.
Steak Knife Utility
Product
Utility Score
Henckels International 12 Piece
7
Chicago Cutlery Fusion 17 Piece
7
Cuisinart 15 Piece Stainless Steel
5
McCook Stainless Steel 15 Piece
5
Amazon Basics 14 Piece
3
Some larger sets, such as the McCook 15-Piece and Cuisinart 15-Piece, come with multiple extra knives such as slicing, tourné, and santoku. Although we appreciate having options, we found having too many knives dilutes the quality of the set and adds extra maintenance and cleaning that we did not like. Ultimately, the sets that offer the most practical combination of knives scored the best overall.
Buy a Honing Steel
If you happen to pick up a set without a hone, we highly recommend adding one. They're typically not very expensive, and just about any metal honing rod will do. You'll get far better performance from all your non-serrated knives by using this inexpensive tool regularly.
Cutting Performance
A knife just isn't a knife unless it's sharp and can cut what you want it to. We have a battery of tests that measure the sharpness and resiliency of these knives.
Key Tests for Cutting Performance
Product
Edge Retention
Precision
Shun Classic 5 Piece
10
9
Wusthof Classic 6-Piece
10
9
Global 7 Piece Takashi
9
9
Zwilling Professional S 7-Piece
9
8
Victorinox Classic 8-Piece
8
8
Mercer Culinary Genesis 6 Piece
7
7
Ginsu Gourmet 8 Piece
8
6
Henckels International 12 Piece
7
6
Chicago Cutlery Fusion 17 Piece
7
6
Cuisinart 15 Piece Stainless Steel
5
6
McCook Stainless Steel 15 Piece
5
4
Amazon Basics 14 Piece
2
2
We start by slicing a fresh tomato as thinly as we can, one of the best tests for any knife as it can be a challenging fruit to cut cleanly. Then, we put the knives through the wringer, slicing onions, potatoes, peppers, and citrus. We challenge them with large and small cuts, delicate jobs, and heavy-duty ones. Then, we go back to the tomato and find out how well the knife has held an edge and how much it deteriorated.
The Shun Classic Starter Block housed some seriously impressive blades. Perfectly thin slicing accomplished with ease.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
The Shun 5-Piece knives excelled here, winning top marks for their razor-sharp edge and ability to create Michelin-level precision. Close behind it were the Whustof 6-Piece and the Global 7-Piece. They are very different sets of kitchen knives, with the former being an excellent German style and the latter a lightweight Japanese set, but they both proved to have excellent cutting performance and precision.
The Shun Classic excels at finely dicing an onion.
Credit: Bradley Nichols
The Zwilling 7-Piece and Victorinox 8-Piece were just behind those sets, delivering excellent overall cutting performance, but we found that the edges didn't last quite as long as the above. The Mercer 6-Piece is a very sharp set of knives, and rated highly as well.
We verify all manufacturer claims with our scientific equipment.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
We also ran separate tests for serrated blades. We tested their ability to cut bread, both hard crusty loaves as well as a tender croissant. Some sets lacked a full bread knife and only included a small serrated utility knife — and we tested those, too. Although situationally useful for cutting things like tomatoes, we found them much less suitable for cutting bread products.
Bread Knife Performance
Product
Bread Knife
Global 7 Piece Takashi
10
Zwilling Professional S 7-Piece
9
Victorinox Classic 8-Piece
9
Mercer Culinary Genesis 6 Piece
8
Henckels International 12 Piece
8
Chicago Cutlery Fusion 17 Piece
7
Amazon Basics 14 Piece
6
Wusthof Classic 6-Piece
5
Ginsu Gourmet 8 Piece
3
Cuisinart 15 Piece Stainless Steel
3
McCook Stainless Steel 15 Piece
3
We found the Zwilling Professional S and Global Takashi to be our favorite bread knives from the sets that we tested. They were sharp, with clean looks and impeccable performance. They had slightly offset blades to aid hand position in cutting, and the serrations cut easily through both the hard and soft pieces of bread we threw at them.
The Zwilling Professional S came with our testers favorite bread knife.
Credit: Bradley Nichols
The Victorinox Classic and Henckels International Statement also had excellent bread knives. We found them to be sharp and very capable of making the slices we asked of them. However, they had a more traditional straight-blade shape and lacked anything that wowed us. The Mercer Genesis and Chicago Cutlery Fusion bread knives were a bit more average, still. They proved able to slice through bread as easily, but we found the cuts to be coarser by a small margin.
The Victorinox Classic had a great bread knife, plain and simple, but effective.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
It is the combination of these assessments — of edge retention and precision of the straight edged blades, and effectiveness of the serrated blades — that we used to compare the cutting performance of these knife sets to one another.
Honing Your Knife
One of the best things you can do to keep your knives sharp is to hone them before each use. As you use your knife, small, microscopic serrations get bent, making your knife feel duller. Honing is the process, different from sharpening, by which the microscopic serrations along the edge of a knife are all realigned in the same direction. The legendary Jacques Pepin has a great guide to how to hone your knives.
The Wusthof Classic chef knife makes short work of even the slipperiest tomatoes.
Credit: Bradley Nichols
Ergonomics
Is each knife comfortable in many different sizes and shapes of hands? Can it be used for prolonged periods of time without blistering your hands? These are very important aspects of your long-term happiness while using kitchen knives.
Key Tests for Ergonomics
Product
Overall Comfort
Balance
Bolster Design
Shun Classic 5 Piece
9
9
9
Wusthof Classic 6-Piece
9
9
9
Zwilling Professional S 7-Piece
9
9
8
Chicago Cutlery Fusion 17 Piece
8
8
8
Global 7 Piece Takashi
8
7
8
Victorinox Classic 8-Piece
7
8
8
Mercer Culinary Genesis 6 Piece
8
7
8
Cuisinart 15 Piece Stainless Steel
7
6
7
McCook Stainless Steel 15 Piece
7
6
7
Henckels International 12 Piece
6
6
7
Ginsu Gourmet 8 Piece
7
7
5
Amazon Basics 14 Piece
5
5
5
The Shun Classic set stands out again as one of the most consistently comfortable and ergonomic knives we tested. It's deceptively simple-looking, and the Pakkawood handle fits very comfortably in your hand. We found that among our testers, there were no complaints, and several picked it as their favorite.
The Shun Pakkawood handle is a joy to hold.
Credit: Bradley Nichols
The Zwilling Professional S and Wusthof Classic also have very ergonomic handles and are both great examples of German-style knives. They are heavy blades but exceptionally well balanced, and almost everyone said the weight felt good in their hand and aided the cutting motion. They also tend to make knives with full and half bolsters, giving you the opportunity to purchase the shape you like the best.
We used every blade and challenged them to various tasks, like apple peeling, which requires a different level of comfort in hand.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
The Chicago Cutlery Fusion set gets some recognition here. Despite its shortcomings, we found these knives to be some of the most comfortable we tested. We found the Global Takashi knives to be well-balanced and easy to hold in most hands. Although odd at first and very lightweight, most testers grew to appreciate their svelte cutting motion.
The Chicago Cutlery Fusions's rubber handle was liked by many testers.
Credit: Carissa Stanz
We tested every knife in each of these sets by having various people of different sizes, shapes, and skill levels cut produce in our kitchen. This comprehensive, crowd-sourced approach allowed us to compare the ergonomics of these knives.
Build Quality
Looking at the build quality was the first and last test we did with every knife. We began by inspecting each set for flaws in the manufacturing process or other blemishes. Next, we took two blades from each set — the chef and paring — and performed the paper cut test, which gives us a good idea of the factory sharpness of each knife.
We took our knives from the kitchen to the lab to verify manufacturer claims and see how they hold up in the real world.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
Then we took all of these kitchen knives to our lab to confirm the manufacturers' claimed specifications, including their steel hardness (HRC) and the sharpness and blade angle of every set's chef knife.
Most of our measurements came close, and there can always be variation depending on where on the blade it was measured. It's also worth mentioning that some blades are made with layered steel. Layering the steel makes the blade sharper, but it can throw off HRC measurements.
The Shun Classic set stands apart in build quality. We found the machining to be immaculate on all of the blades. The Zwilling Professional S, Wusthof Classic, and Global Takashi were up there as well, being made practically flawlessly and coming out of the box with perfect edges.
The Global Takashi boasts a seamless metal handle filled with sand for perfect balance.
Credit: Bradley Nichols
The Victorinox Classic, Henckels International Statement, and Mercer Genesis were all very well made, but with some small flaws that made them look and feel less finished or refined. That said, we didn't feel this adversely affected their overall performance.
The curves and hook on the butt end of the Henckels International kitchen knives enhance their ergonomics.
Credit: Carissa Stanz
Taking into account our measurements in the lab and close examination of every knife in each set, we ranked each set based on build quality.
Finally, after the entire testing process, we inspected each set again to see how well it held up to the wear and tear we put it through.
We looked closely at every knife we tested in search of defects like this uneven blade.
Credit: Bradley Nichols
Conclusion
Choosing a knife set for your home can be daunting. With the array of configurations and options available on the market today, everybody will have their own personal sweet spot. We hope our article helps you make a decision that will keep you and your loved ones fed for years to come.
The right knife set can make all the difference in your kitchen.
