Mercer Culinary Ultimate White, 8 Inch Chef's Knife

Sharp and easy to clean. Holds its edge. Easy to use.

Like the shape and grip of the handle. The steel is good enough to take a sharp edge and a reasonable commercial kitchen beating. You can get a better handle and better steel. But in a commercial setting, any knife will take a lot of hard use. This one is made to take that abuse without draining the tool budget.Pro kitchens need sharp chef’s tools that can do all the chef tool jobs. They need to pay as little as possible for them. Mercer Culinary understands this need and produces several lines of low-cost cutlery to meet slightly different needs, the primary one being kitchen tools as a wear item that can perform at chef level without blowing too much overhead on them.These are easy to sharpen and don’t chip easily. The handles are certified for chlorinated sanitizer sinks. Lots of companies make a tool like this but Mercer outsells them all. You might not want one for your home kitchen where a little nicer tools make sense, but for your restaurant they’re a great compromise between cost, quality, and utility. You can get better everything but for 14 bucks probably not.My kitchen knife is a Shun with a VG-10 core and mild steel “Damascus” cladding. It has a stainless handle and could work well in a pro setting but VG-10 is notorious for chipping when you’re working on bones. I have a German cleaver for that stuff and the Shun for everything else. My favorite part of the VG-10 blade is the laser sharp edge it holds. But it might be a bit fragile under commercial use.If a $14 knife chips under hard use it’s no great loss.Everything about this knife maximizes commercial effectiveness per dollar spent. If that is your priority, this is a pretty good candidate to be your knife. Your kitchen might buy these by the gross.

There are people out there with lots of disposable income which results in exposure to lots of things that most of us might never see, do or learn and so, a knife like this one might seem like a trifle to them.For the rest of you, those who, like myself, have lived with stainless steel kitchen sets from the likes of Walmart, Target and Ross for their entire lives. This review is for you.This knife is SCARY SHARP right out of the package. When I first held it in my hands and felt it's balance and gazed upon its highly reflective, high carbon steel surface, I immediately knew that I was on another level. I've been using it daily for several weeks now and, at first, I only noticed subtle differences between it and my old stainless cheap knives, then I realized that I was handling it improperly. I was using it in the same manner as the flawed knives that I had grown accustomed to. I attempted to immitate the actions of chefs and cooks that I had seen on TV and the internet and this knife began to shine. To be sure, I am no chef and I definitely MUST learn proper cutting and chopping technique to get the most out of this knife but the user experience is BEAUTIFUL!I don't feel 100% confident in the hard plastic handle. I worry that if my hands are too wet or maybe oily, there might be a slip, leading to an unfortunate encounter with its unforgiving blade but, the handle isn't bad. It's just chunky enough that I never lose track of it while my hands are in motion and it has raised textured areas for the thumb and forefinger which works really well to help keep the handle stable while in use. Also, and this could be a pro or a con, as I understand it, due to the fact that the blade is high carbon steel and not stainless, you can't let it air dry in the dish rack. It has to be cleaned and dried immediately after every use. As a guy who is used to maintaining and caring for various types of equipment and gear, this is not a problem for me. I appreciate the performance of the knife so much that I WANT to take care of it that way.This knife is obviously not the best chef's knife that money can buy but, for the PRICE, I think it's beautifully made, its frighteningly sharp and for the most part, a joy to use, if you can get beyond the new and unfamiliar fear of cutting yourself (YES. It's that much different from what you find in cheap kitchen sets). It has changed my kitchen experience! I LOVE it and I don't think you'll regret it!By the way, I got this size because my very petite wife has very small hands and she did not want a heavy knife. I will definitely be purchasing it's bigger brother for myself in the near future.

I was surprised this came to me sharp! It feels comfortable enough and its weight is sufficient. It cuts well...That's why it was so hard to bring myself to dull it with a brick and resharpen it to put this knife to the test!Used 400/1000 grit whetstone to sharpen . Factory bevel seemed to be around 15°. It sharpened up nicely; another surprise! Lol, sorry if I use excessive exclamations it's a habbit.Next test was march chopping (look it up) it on a hard wooden cutting board to slowly emulate wear and tear until it couldn't cut a tomato smoothly. I honed it and the edge restored quite well! I suggest a steel rod. I'll explain why shortly.Over all this knife is perfect for beginners or anyone looking to just buy a sharp knife for cheap so they don't have to sharpen their old one(s) and want something better then what you can get at a supermarket. If you plan on sharpening it, a lot of steel was removed in my initial whetstone work. I have a feeling it will need sharpening several times a year as the edge retention isn't so great. That's why I suggest a steel rod over diamond or ceramic for daily honing. Save that steel!Lastly, remember to take care of your knives! Wash them and dry them well and they won't rust. Don't throw them in a draw and they'll last longer! A sharp knife is a safe knife!;D

Relatively inexpensive knife. It's made out of a softer steel, but it comes very sharp right out of the package and when I looked at the edge under a 1000x microscope, the edge was beautiful. The handle fits my hand well, and over-all I think it's a well-designed knife. My one nitpick is that the blade is a little bit wider than I would prefer, but that that's probably just me. I slice rather than rocker cut, so I don't need quite that much belly on a knife. I've had good luck with my other Mercer blade, and so far this one seems like another winner, especially considering the low price point.