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Spent $250 on a fancy new chef's knife and it chipped on the third day | Chefs - Librear

Spent $250 on a fancy new chef's knife and it chipped on the third day

I finally splurged on a high-end Japanese gyuto from a reputable shop in Portland after using old beaters for years, and a chip appeared near the tip while I was slicing through butternut squash. The shop basically told me it's my fault for using it on hard vegetables, even though that's half my prep work. Has anyone else dealt with wimpy knives that can't handle normal kitchen tasks, or did I just pick the wrong brand?

2 comments

2 Comments

emma3495mo ago

Ugh, that is such a bummer for the price tag. I once bought a "carbon steel beauty" that chipped on an onion (an onion, really?) and I was so mad I almost cried, but then I remembered I'm a grown adult. @the_hayden hit the nail on the head there - Portland shops love to sell you a laser beam for a knife and then act surprised when you aren't slicing only room-temperature butter. Your gyuto is basically a fancy scalpel, not the machete you need for a butternut squash (which is basically a rock with a vegetable costume on). The shop blaming you for using it on "hard vegetables" is just them covering for selling you the wrong tool for the job, plain and simple.

the_hayden5mo ago

Hang on, when you say "reputable shop in Portland" - was this one of those places that sells a lot of handmade, artisanal stuff where the owner talks about "rockwell hardness" and "cryogenic tempering" for like 20 minutes? I only ask because I've run into a couple shops there that push these super-hard, thin-bladed knives (like 62-64 HRC) that are basically meant for slicing raw fish and fileting, not smashing through squash. The chip sounds like it came from twisting or torquing the blade while cutting through something dense, which yeah, a lot of those high-end gyutos just can't handle. Did the shop tell you anything specific about the steel type or the heat treat, or did they just go "oops, that's on you"?