I see a lot of people (including myself) that buy expensive $200 chef’s knives. Why do I see chefs use cheap looking knives with plastic handles?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “plastic chef knife“
About Alice
Written by: Alice
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I see a lot of people (including myself) that buy expensive $200 chef’s knives. Why do I see chefs use cheap looking knives with plastic handles?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “plastic chef knife“
About Alice
“Because it’s the Indian not the arrow.” Working in the food industry for 2 decades I heard that phrase for the first time while working at the CIA (culinary institute of America not central intelligence). I had a set of cheap “housewife” knives due to most of my kit mysterious walking away from my roll at the grand CIA. A coworker was giving me crap about my knives one day but impressed with my knife skills asking “how do you get such nice cuts with such shit knives?” Meanwhile the sous chef was standing there and said “because it’s the Indian not the arrow.” I take pride in my knife skills and I consider it a challenge when I go to a friend or family members house and cook with their tools and still produce high end restaurant quality cuts with dull home kitchen knives. Here’s my current knife kit. Most of my knives are Shun now used to have Mac knives I also like global and of course every commercial kitchen knows Dexter Russel knives last forever and are cheap.
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Because they are professional knives, NFS (National Food Safety certified) . They also have texture that enhances your grip. The steel in these knives is in a sweet spot, not too soft not to hard of steel. And you never touch their knives without their permission. One stupid move can ruin the edge.
That plus $200 knives are about $100 too much.
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When I was last in charge of purchasing supplies like this, those cheap looking knives with plastic handles were made by a company called Victorinox.
Victorinox is a pretty good quality knife that happens to be durable and stays sharp a good while. I’m not able to get one as sharp as a Japanese blade, but what I will say is that the only real “problem” that I have had when it comes to Victorinox knives is that no one ever took care of them.
Even so, we’d get about two years of heavy use out of a standard chef’s knife.
They coast about $70 to $80 each.
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You see cooks using cheap knives. They’re provided by the restaurant, who also arrange for them to be sharpened regularly (but never often enough) and are shared between the entire staff.
The chef is the guy responsible for developing the menu, obtaining suppliers for groceries and kitchen fixtures, training line and prep cooks, and overseeing the quality of what comes out of the kitchen. The chef might well hop on the line when it’s busy, or do some prep when the prep cook is too hungover to come in, and when that happens he’s going to use the same equipment everyone else does because he probably didn’t bring in his good knives. Unless he’s the kind who does bring his knives every day, in which case he’ll use those, but the cooks still use the cheapies.
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In my city (and I’m sure others) there is a service that provides those cheap knives with plastic handles, once a week they pick up their dull knives and drop off a set newly sharpened knives. The whole thing works because the knives are decent enough, you buy a good knife to hold its edge but it doesnt matter when you sharpen once week. If you do a lot of heavy cutting and the blade dulls a little during the week you can take a steel to it.
Eventually those knives in circulation eventually get ground down to next to nothing, at that point they sell them off to poor chef students like me. They have terrible balance (not bad when they are newer) so I had a good chefs knife but for filleting or a paring knife it’s not so important
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They are rented. Almost all restaurants have a knife sharpening service,that furnishes the knives and drops off newly sharpened ones once a week and all have indestructible plaster polymer handles. No one who understands a professional kitchen would ever use their good knives. The rented ones are surprisingly suited to the purpose.
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Because to a chef, comfort and ease of use is more important than the quality of the steel. The chef needs a knife that fits his hand well, so that’s what he looks for. In all likelihood someone else is going to keep it sharp for him, so the steel is not that important.
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A restaurant setting is full of dangers to the knife. People might grab it without your permission and pry open a can of tomatoes, or hack into a frozen hunk of meat. Or brush it off the counter and chip it on the floor. Or maybe they just like it and steal it when you’re not looking.
Some people don’t like to risk expensive knives in that setting, so they will bring more expendable knives or use whatever is available. It all depends on the personal choice of the person using the knife.
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If it is like my house hold and people are stealing them, it no use to buy a good knives . They will take your good ones and leave you with something wore out.
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