Gary Portman

Emojoy is one of the many knife brands that live almost entirely on Amazon. You won’t find it in a kitchen shop, there’s no long company history to read about, and the listings are written in that breathless style where … Read more

Buy a santoku if you want one knife that handles vegetables, boneless meat and fish. Buy a nakiri if most of what you cut is vegetables and you already own a chef’s knife for everything else. Both are Japanese, both … Read more

Buy the Classic if you want a heavy, forged knife with a bolster you’ll keep for decades; buy the Gourmet if you want WÜSTHOF’s German steel and Solingen name in a lighter knife for much less money. Both lines come … Read more

Are Hampton Forge knives good? For what they cost, yes: they’re fair budget sets for a first apartment, a dorm, a rental or a spare kitchen. Don’t expect them to cut like a forged German knife or stay sharp for … Read more

A self-sharpening block is only useful if its knives and maintenance system both make sense. Calphalon gets that balance mostly right: its straight-edge prep knives are full tang, and spring-loaded ceramic sharpeners touch those edges whenever they move through the … Read more

Here’s the thing most people don’t expect when they line up Shun’s two best-known lines: the blades are made of the same steel. Classic and Premier both use a VG-MAX core inside 68 layers of Damascus cladding, both are sharpened … Read more

Calphalon is now a self-sharpening knife brand first and everything else second. Its Premier blocks pair full-tang, bolstered knives with ceramic sharpeners, a useful combination for cooks who let edges go dull. The Premier by Calphalon 15-Piece Knife Set with … Read more

The first thing to know about Sabatier is that it isn’t one company. The name goes back to knife makers in Thiers, France’s old cutlery town, in the 1800s, and it was never tied to a single maker. Today several … Read more

Calphalon and Cuisinart sell knife blocks that look alike on a store shelf: forged-looking blades, bolsters, 15 pieces and a wooden block. Neither publishes a steel grade or a hardness number for these sets, so the specs won’t separate them. … Read more