For Your Slicing and Dicing Fun It's the Friedr. Dick vs Wusthof Knife-Off!
There are few fundamental laws of knives and blades. #1: The personal valuation of any given knife is highly subjective. Judgment is dependent on preference to weight, balance, shape, and ”feel”. You can’t argue with a perfectly balanced knife – it’s a beautiful wedding of engineering prowess and centuries of craftsmanship in metallurgy. On the other hand, if you try to argue the superiority of one knife over another with someone who prefers a little extra weight in the handle vs the blade, you’ll be wasting your time. Law #2: New knives are always “good” knives. They might not be ideal for your particular purpose, but every new knife is sharp. A lasting judgment comes with time. You have to see how long your blade holds it’s edge, it’s ease of sharpening, what kind of versatility and control your knife offers you, as well as the overall durability of your new tool.
That being said let’s take a look at your kitchen needs and two knives on the market. First off let’s talk versatility. Please say you’re not one of those people who believes the best all around knife is a small paring or steak knife. This is wrong for so many reasons. While we appreciate the control you feel from wielding something that fits in your palm, you’re making things more difficult on yourself than need be. If you like the serrated edge because it’ll cut through anything you need to ask yourself if you spend more time cutting through thick bread crusts than cutting meat or vegetables. And once in a while take a look at the ragged, uneven, mauled looking victim of your tiny serrated blade. This is a piece of food you can eat while standing over the sink but this is not a piece of food you should serve to friends or loved ones. Here in San Francisco we are all for a long serrated bread knife for fresh sourdough or toasty french loaves that need tooth the get through the sonorous crackle of crust and into the soft sponge of bread in the middle. But what about your vegetables? Meat? What about cheese?!
A proper all-purpose knife is large. No exceptions. It is well-, if not perfectly balanced. We won’t deny you a little extra weight in the blade if this is your preference, but proper control is paramount. The quality knife is sharp. Really sharp. It holds the blade edge through many uses and will serve you faithfully for a lifetime if properly maintained. A proper depend-on-it-to-do-it-all kitchen knife has a full tang – this is the part of the blade that extends down the handle. The blade doesn’t go a few inches into the handle and then stop – it runs to the end, fully incorporated in your grip. It has a wide blade, both for a little weight and for a straight, even cut through large foodstuffs like a big fat tender eggplant. With us so far?
Today we’re looking at two lovely new knives, both made in Germany. The first is the Wusthof Classic Nakiri Knife, a Japanese-style blade in a traditional rectangular cleaver shape. This is an excellent blade shape for slicing food thin, for chopping quickly, or for fine dicing in a snap. The 7” blade is forged from a single piece of high-carbon stainless steel, so it’s both durable and sharp. The fine edge is angled and sharpened on both sides, as opposed to the majority of blades that are angled from one side. The dual-angle is great for thin slices for stir-fry or julienne veggies as well as meat. Use an appropriate sharpener, though, to maintain the effective edge of this double-bevel blade. But wait – didn’t someone mention cheese? The Nakiri Fine Edge works okay with cheese – the slices are thin and smooth, but don’t release very easily. This is a totally normal result with this style blade. Wusthof’s answer is the Nakiri with a Hollow Edge. This knife has shallow hollows carved out of the bottom section of the blade which allow for better release of sticky or starchy foods like cheese or potato slices. The Nakiri has a full tang and the handle is synthetic, compression-riveted three times to the tang and manufactured to withstand a high impact workout in the kitchen. All in all this is a fine new knife and happens to be forged in my personal favorite blade shape. We have high hopes for it’s durability and longevity when combined with the Wusthof sharpener, and liked it better in just about every way than our previously-reviewed Wusthof blade.
On to the F. Dick Premier WACS Chefs Knife. We had to leave this knife to last because, well, it’s so new to the market that it hasn’t even been released on a large scale yet. Are you a fan of instant gratification? Too bad – you can’t get your hands on this space-age knife at Amazon just yet – but you can place an order for future delivery. Here’s the scoop: Friedr. Dick designed a line of their Premier knives according to the standards of the World Association of Chefs’ Societies (WACS). These knives are clearly designed and manufactured with the high-intensity use and hygienic demands of the professional chefs’ community. The WACS 8.5” Chef Knife is forged of a single piece of specially coated ice-hardened molybdenum-vanadium steel with a substantial finger guard at the base of the blade. The fancy names for the steel alloy are fairly typical for high-carbon stainless steel blades. The finger guard gives a great balance point and a tangible point of smooth control at the pivot.
This knife series makes a point of being aesthetically transparent (or at least translucent) with the synthetic mother-of-pearl finish on the handle, presumably to make it easier to see any food particles that can get trapped or missed in a wash. Once again, the handles are distinctive on the Dick blades, as in our last look. Dick gives a good deal of attention to hygiene in the WACS series; primarily in the blade coated with antibacterial, non-stick ceramic particles. We’ll have to do a little high-impact testing to give you a final word on this coating but it promises to make the blade highly resistant to wear and easy to clean. The main point we took away from this is that we can slice cheese and starchy foods and expect an easy release from the blade. We’re a little curious to see if sharpening over time will compromise the non-stick coating, but in most cookware you just can’t surpass ceramic sealing for effectiveness or durability. Please note the Dick Premier WACS line does include an Asian-style Chefs Knife named the Santoku which is a much closer match to the Nakiri at 7” in length.
So what’s the verdict? You’ll pay a little more- $160 or so- for the WACS blades and the white pearlescent handles will definitely stand out from the rest of the black-handled knives in your kitchen collection (for better or worse). The Nakiri is closer to $100. But you won’t be disappointed by either of these culinary keepers. And if you’re still one of those people who thinks a paring knife works just fine for everything we dare you to get one of these knives and tell us your mind hasn’t been changed.
