Babish High-Carbon 1.4116 German Steel Cutlery, 7.5" Clef (Cleaver + Chef) Kitchen Knife, Good Housekeeping Standout Knife of 2022

These are not the best knives on the market and I think that’s kind of the point. These are good quality functional knives that are a great starting point for someone. They come surprisingly sharp so handle with care right out of the box. The 3 pack (chef, bread, pairing) is perfect to get started cooking, or if you just have a smaller kitchen and don’t want to store a one block on the counter. The handles feel nice and the full tang design paired with good steel means you don’t have to worry about the blade snapping off like so many other knives in this process bracket. The knife roll is a great addition as it provides a safe storage option so no one is reaching into a drawer and coming out with a cut hand.

I just moved into a new home and am replacing the essentials that my old roommate used to own. Obviously, for anyone who cooks at home, you need a few decent knives. Now, my background and current job is working in bars/restaurants. I work on the bar side of things, but have definitely been around commercial kitchens where cooks come in with their daily-driver types of knives. Sure, you have high end restaurants / chefs who own and use $300+ knives (cost per knife), but for most people working in kitchens, they're looking for affordable, good quality knives they can use daily.This knife seems to fit that bill. Granted, it's a serrated bread knife, so it has limited uses. Personally, at home, I'm never slicing bread. All the bread I purchase comes pre-sliced unless you're talking about kaiser rolls or sub style buns. But, my primary use for a bread knife at home is slicing fragile fruits and vegetables like tomatoes and citrus, and cutting sandwiches in half. At my bar we've been using the same restaurant supply store brand serrated knife to prep our bar fruit for 5 years. It was probably a $10 knife at the very most. It still works well, and it has definitely seen a ton of use. Never sharpened once.So, for myself at home, I wanted to buy a good quality bread knife that wouldn't break the bank. I didn't want to go cheap like $10, but didn't want to spend over $50 either. I saw this on Amazon and it fit the bill and had good reviews, so I ordered it. I really love how this knife feels. Great weight balance, and feels quality. It came out of the box super sharp, and I've had a chance to test drive it on slicing tomatoes for sandwiches, and it's super accurate. You can go paper thin if you wanted, and it won't "warble" and start going sideways like some poor quality serrated knives can do. I then made a sandwich and cut it in half. It cut through all of the meat, veggies, and bread like butter. Seriously, like two passes and the sandwich was perfectly cut with nothing dangling and hanging on, it was like a laser cut.I did a bit of research after buying this knife, and saw some reviews out there saying Babish knives will lose their edge fast. That's fine by me, that will happen to any knife, that's why there are wetstones and sharpeners out there, so that's not a,n issue for me. Also, I want to note that I didn't know who Babish was before buying this knife, so I'm not purchasing this as a fanboy or anything. I bought it purely on the price, design and reviews.The reality is, is that you can buy a whole knife set with a wood block for about $50-$80. So, spending $24 on just one knife might seem dumb. But, for 99.9% of home cooking you only need a few knives. A good santoku, a bread knife, and arguably some decent steak knives (depending if you serve your steak pre-cut or not). Those entire knife sets come with about 8 knives you'll probably never need to use, and trying to save a few bucks by buying the whole set will compromise the quality of all the knives.All that being said, I'm happy with my purchase. I also bought the santoku knife this brand offers. Again, I don't mind sharpening knives. I've done it A LOT. If, for whatever reason, these knives can't hold an edge for like a week of general use over time (like some other reviews online say), I'll probably come back here an update my review. But, I just don't see it happening based on the quality of materials used and my week's worth of use on it so far. Are there better knives out there? Of course. Do you really need them as a home cook? Probably not. If you're on a budget and just want a few good knives, I would recommend this brand for sure.

A couple of things to get out of the way first. I am not a trained chef. I am not a professional cook. I am not a cutlery or forging expert. I'm not going to bore anyone at parties with my knowledge of metallurgy or knife-making. My primitive intellect doesn't understand alloys and compositions and things with... molecular structures. Any knowledge I really have comes from watching YouTube videos, experimenting with recipes, and failing or succeeding over several decades in the kitchen. I did discover somewhat early on that unlike golf where I can buy the most expensive clubs sold, I will still be a pretty bad golfer, in the kitchen, good tools can help even a bad cook be a better cook. I also have a brother in law who is a trained and (formerly) professional chef, who has complimented me on numerous occasions for having good quality cook and prep-ware.That out of the way, I am rating this knife entirely on its own merits, price point, etc. My five-star rating is for a $18 knife (which it was when I bought it, though I've noticed the price fluctuates a little bit). Certainly anything I say about it might vary if it were a $150 knife. It is not. So take that into account.I have been a fan of Andrew Rea's cooking videos for quite a long time, and when he started selling products, I wanted to support him. I have a few things from the Babish line, including the tiny whisks (HIGHLY recommended, you'll be surprised by how much you use them), the small prep bowl (again, extremely useful), and the iron trivet, which I bought because it sort of looks like me and that's fun. But one thing I really love is knives. Knives make me sort of starry-eyed, and I love having a new one. In fact, I have many more than I really need. Especially if you ask my wife. I bought this sort of as a low-risk bet, more than a real need for it. I was curious. I wanted to know how a $18 knife would hold up. Worst case, I figured, is I would hate it and donate it to a nephew or something. I didn't.Most of my knives are forged and made in Germany. They are typically Messermeister, Wustoff, or Zwilling. Not the most expensive knives you can buy for sure, but definitely above average. Before I got married, I had a block of Chicago Cutlery knives, which got the job done, but they were kind of cheap stamped-steel rigs. Decent for college knives, but not awesome. I only say this to give you an idea of what I'm comparing this to. I do not have wildly expensive professional cutlery, but I do have nice stuff.I honestly expected this to be a pretty below average knife, but perhaps probably okay for the price. Like a Target special. When it arrived, I was more impressed with it than I expected to be. It's well packaged, a nice weight, pretty well balanced, and sharp. The handle is comfortable and it looks nice. Nothing about it screams loudly that it doesn't belong with its much more expensive German counterparts. The shape is unique, and pretty cool. Especially if you're only looking to have a couple, two or three, knives in your collection. It's become one of my go-to knives for vegetables, chopping, etc. I used it tonight on a tri-tip and it slices meat competently as well. I always hand-wash my knives, so I can't say whether it holds up to machine washing, or how well. Don't put your knives in the dishwasher. Come on.I do not know the metal composition, nor do I care all that much. For the price, I'm guessing it's probably a lower-grade steel, but that's fine. I also don't know how long it will hold an edge over the long-term, but two months later, a couple of passes on a ceramic steel and it's still going strong. I assume it's full tang. It feels like it is, but if it's not, again, I'm not sure I care. The construction is all at least average. Even my chef brother-in-law was reasonably impressed with it, and his knives, I'm pretty certain, were forged in the fires of Mount Doom by ancient trolls, or something.I would possibly buy more Babish knives, but then I'd probably have to get a divorce. Because I don't know where I'd store them, along with the scores of other knives I have that I don't display or use. But if these were the only knives I had, I think they'd be fine. I'd be perfectly okay gifting these to someone just starting to build their culinary skills and collection. Again, if this was $150, I may feel differently about it, but it's not, and I do not. For the price, this checks all the boxes for me.

I've been wanting a better-quality knife than the one I've been using for quite a while now. When I saw this one, I finally decided to give it a try. It came in a beautiful box, nicely packed and protected. It even had a guard over the tip of the blade. At first, I didn't think it was too sharp. Then a few passes in and the chunk of my finger told me to think again! It was so smooth I hardly felt it! Just noticed a lot of blood.... Good thing I have a medical background and everything I needed to fix myself and sanitize the blade. I had a lot to cut and noticed that the job that normally would have taken me over an hour was done in less than 45 minutes. It fit my hand great, seems very heavy, well balanced and durable - and obviously is sharp enough! I also loved the face on the edge of the hilt. It made what used to be a hard job go much smoother and faster, even with the short medical time-out! I feel like I will be able to get many years of good use out of this knife with the proper care. Very happy with it.