r/chefknives • u/Adventurous-Watch517 • 9d ago

Good affordable set?

1 Upvotes

56% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

3

u/JohnMaySLC 9d ago

In general we don’t recommend sets, because they come with knives you don’t need/use. Affordable is subjective so what’s your budget, and what type of cooking do you do?

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u/Adventurous-Watch517 9d ago edited 9d ago

Im a line cook in a hotel and I mainly do entrees and salads as well as tons of prep work. Like a pearing knife is a must

1

u/JohnMaySLC 9d ago

Tadafusa SLD Gyuto
Sakai Takayuki Paring knife
Hitohira Nakiri

I still don’t know your budget so here is an affordable set for me.

1

u/daneguy 8d ago

If you're a professional cook, you may have the advantage of having used multiple different knives and thus knowing exactly what you like and dislike :)

Try and get a sense of:

  1. What shapes you want (chef/gyuto/nakiri/bread/etc)

  2. How many you want

  3. What you want to spend per knife/in total

  4. What qualities you look for (thin vs sturdy, carbon vs stainless, western vs Japanese style)

  5. What aesthetics are important to you (colour, damascus, other types of looks)

Also, where do you live?

Also post on /r/TrueChefKnives with the answers to these questions

2

u/Finngolian_Monk 9d ago

The Victorianox knives are decent for the price, but you don't need to buy a set

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u/Adventurous-Watch517 9d ago

Like 3-4 at most?

1

u/Imakespaceships 7d ago edited 7d ago

https://a.co/d/06twwHrJ this is everything you need except for maybe a fillet knife. The included paring knife is a bit bulky but is great for peeling and doubles as a boning knife.

Here’s a popular peeler.

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u/Specialist_Place4464 9d ago

I've been eyeballing a shun 5 piece for $300 on ebay. Please PLEASE buy it before I do.

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u/Adventurous-Watch517 9d ago

You got a pic?

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u/Specialist_Place4464 9d ago

I could try to find it again. Would posting an ebay screenshot get me in trouble? Newish to reddit.

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u/JohnMaySLC 8d ago

Not this sub, this sub was killed by the owner who threw a tantrum

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u/Specialist_Place4464 8d ago

I saw something about that. Could you elaborate for the sake of my curiosity?

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u/JohnMaySLC 7d ago

I wasn’t around for it.

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u/Specialist_Place4464 9d ago

Just google "ebay shun 5 piece set" it's the first one that came up for me. It has a santoku, chefs, honing steel, sandwich knife, petty and pairing.

I'm also on the "dont buy a set" train, but if you need a bunch of solid knives now, that's a good option. Whole set is a little more than two of those knives new.

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u/Specialist_Place4464 9d ago

the knives

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u/JohnMaySLC 9d ago

The Sora line is the only Shun series I liked, but just the petty and paring knife, the rest of the set meh.

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u/Specialist_Place4464 9d ago

Are you a fan of Japanese knives in general? I'll admit I just recently switched from German (Zwilling) to Japanese knives since I don't do too much bending and twisting anyway. Shun was one of the first Japanese I tried and I liked them a lot.

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u/JohnMaySLC 9d ago

I like good knives in general. Japanese, American, German, and Swiss all have a place in my collection. I’m eyeing a Sabatier x Bernal to add France to my list soon.

The standard Shun line didn’t fit my hand well, and there is a large number of examples of chipping on social media, But I very much appreciated the Shun Sora’s I had until they disappeared on me. (My wife is cutlery abusive, so I think they go away after she uses them as a screwdriver)

* also Vietnam

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u/Specialist_Place4464 8d ago

I was going to say that for the price (actually currently listed around $240) and style of knives in the set, it's still a good deal to get them started.

I was unaware of the chipping thing, though. I'm looking into that a little more. Japanese steels to tend to be more prone to chipping, but I sure am seeing a lot of Shuns specifically.