Cutlery Reviews

A well balanced and designed knife. Excellent multi-use prep knife.

I have had Henckels knives for years now. They were given to me as gifts but in my lifetime, I will never need to replace these knives. They never get dull and they are so versatile. The 5" serrated utility knife is great for slicing tomatoes when a chef's knife makes them hard to slice. This knife is also great for trimming the fat off of chicken breasts because the fat is gooey and hard to get a hold of with a chef knife. I highly recommend this knife. It's worth the extra money. This knife amongst others are MUST haves!

My parents always used Henckels knives so I've come to expect the same from all knives. I never realized how good Henckels are until I used someone else's; the difference is night and day. I'm a college student with limited income, but I decided to invest in this. The Henckels 5" utility knife is the perfect size for just about any use. It has a nice weight and a comfy, ergonomic handle. It simply does the job - well. What else can I say?

It's not that this isn't a high quality knife, it is.

For that quality, I'll give it four stars. It's got a full bolster, and it's forged (not stamped) in the German style. It's very hard, and takes a good edge, that lasts well. It's perhaps a bit tough to get an edge on without knowing what you're doing if using a flat stone, so for that I'll give it four not five stars.

The thing is, why do you need a $...sandwich knife? Many other companies make many other knives in a similar style and shape that cost a fraction what this knife does.

Forschner comes to mind. Sure it would be stamped and wouldn't have a full bolster, but it would cost $... instead of $..., and for a knife you're really not going to use that often you should save the money and get yourself a better chef knife.

Forschner makes a monderful 5-6" utility knife that looks like a mini chef knife that is great for cuting vegetables, and doubles as a terrific sandwich knife.

I frankly only have this knife because it came in a set with a 8" chefs knife and a pairing knife.

There are really two main competitors in the high-end mainstream kitchen knife market: Henckels and Wusthof. Those who have used both usually have a preference. My preference (and therefore bias you should know about) is for the Wusthofs.

The Wusthof Classic line is the more conservative counterpart to the Grand Prix line. The only difference, however, is the handle style. I personally prefer the Grand Prix, but this is an issue of personal preference. The balance and grip of these knives are as close to perfect as I have found. For those wondering what benefits a higher priced knife provides, one benefit is that the blade (or tang) is one piece all the way through the handle. This makes the blade much stronger, and less likely to snap.

This particular model is the 6 inch sandwich knife. I don't find this knife to be particularly useful in everyday usage. The 8 inch chef's knife, or 4 � inch utility knife work just fine for jobs on either end of the spectrum. Do you really need this expensive of a knife to cut baloney? I don't.

Don't get me wrong; this is a good high quality knife. However, for the mainstream chef, I think its usage will be minimal, and thus it is overkill.

I just added this knife to my Wusthof collection. I arrived extremely sharp, and is nice for semi-fine work. Activities like dicing shallots, which are too small for a large 8 inch knife and to big for a paring knife, are nice with this knife. Be careful though, the tip of the blade is quite thin, and will not stand up to abuse.

A true J.A.Henckels set has twin men on it, all the knives that Target is showing as only one. Can the people from Target please explain this..

The trend for high end steak knives these days is to make them teeny tiny. I liked these knives because they are bigger and look nice. So I got them even though they were cheap and I was suspicious about their quality.

Unfortunately, when I got them I discovered that they don't cut steak all that easily. I have some even cheaper steak knives with serrated blades that cuts much better than these.

To answer another reviewer's question, the reason this Henckels set has only one man in the logo is because the knives are not made in Germany. The twins are reserved for the top-of-the-line German Henckels, but the company also makes cheaper, lesser quality knives overseas. Thus the international at the end of J.A. Henckels International.