Mercer Culinary Ultimate White, 8 Inch Chef's Knife

This thing is just a workhorse. Sharp right out of the box and slices through roasts, briskets and ribs with ease. Very easy to clean and maintain and a fantastic value if you're just looking for a solid knife and not trying to be fancy.

This is what a professional butcher recommended I buy when I asked him. It's so affordable and incredibly good at maintaining an edge and gliding through meat. I wouldn't use this knife on anything beside trimming/cutting meat because that's really what this knife is designed to do. It's the nicest cut I've ever had through a piece of meat, including my fancy Damascus steel chef's knife. The fancy knife is sharper but it isn't the right shape for trimming and the shape is what really matters. The steel quality seems high, but I'm not 100% a certified expert on different grades of steel for culinary purposes. That being said I do have some knowledge of the different qualities of steel since I studied materials science my freshman year and switched to nuclear engineering to finish my bachelor's. From all the materials I've handled by hand in my research, this steel really seems to stand out in its ability to maintain its sharpness and also remain flexible. Whatever alloy they're using, it's not poor quality like most knives I encounter in the home kitchen.

Good quality knife. Very comfortable and very sharp. I used this to trim meat (venison & pork). Blade is thick enough and not too flexible. The size is right and functionality worth the money.

Very sharp comfortable

I wanted to find a pretty affordable boning knife since I won't use it as often as my other knives, however I still wanted it to be sharp and good quality. This thing is almost terrifyingly sharp, easily scoring chicken bones if I'm not careful enough. At least while it has its factory sharpness, trimming off meat requires very, very little force and movement.I personally like the plastic handle, especially the sort of narrow bolster towards the bottom of the blade that perfectly suits my preference to hold a knife with a sort of pinch grip. It probably also contributes to the relatively light weight of the knife, which makes it even easier to handle. Not the most fancy material, but again - for a somewhat niche knife I just wanted something affordable that still got the job done, and this met my expectations.

great value! good handle! is sharp and comfortable! well made

Mercer Knifes always hold there own and this is no exception... I really love their higher end VG10 knifes and own a full set of them. The get babied and for chores I don't want to put them through I use the stamped millennial knifes. I own most of then and a few of a couple different versions such as the Nikari that I own 3 of and the 6 inch boning knife 3 as well and 3 of the 8in chefs kinfe..The edges on the higher end knifes are much finer finishes as you would expect but for the low cost the edge is fantastic.What I do when I get a new one is run a 800, 1500, 3000 and 6000 whetstone treatment on it keeping the exact factory bevel (no need to reprofile as the factory bevels are excellent as they are, I will say on the Nikari I do reprofile it to a 11 degree bevel as the thin blade is just so ultra razor sharp with a 11 degree edge over the 15 degree factory edge that it's worth the it if you have a set of DMT or other high quality Diamond stones that I go for it and the steel is hard enough to hold up to a 11 degree angle and keep a edge so long as you are cutting friuts and vegs or slicing tender cuts of meat as the Nikari is intended to do) then over a progressive stropping starting with 3 micron Diamond paste on high quality leather then down to 1 micron to half micron then to .25 micron and finishing with .1 micron.This will give you a edge that will whittle hair even on the thick blades like the 12in chef knife... For most people out the box will be more then good enough as they will shave no problem out the box but I have OCD with sharp knifes and love taking edges to a ultra mirror finish that is literally sharper then a razor blade.At 15 degrees with the method I use on the chefs knifes the edge will hold up extremely with a simple strop on the .1 micron strop after you are finished with it just 5 or so strops per side and that's it and your edge will be flawless (this is how I treat all my knifes). Realistically a home cook could simple strop the knifes once a week even with the factory edge and have razor sharp knifes that don't need to touch a stone for a month or two... If you work edges like I do then the bevel and edge will hold up for an extremely long time with just a few hits on the strop and not need to visit the stones or diamond plates but maybe 2 times a year.The Japanese steel used in these knifes is fantastic and punches way above its price point and holds its edge well but is a little tough to sharpen if you don't have the equipment and or skills to do so... Their German steel knifes are deff easier to sharpen with just a 1k and 3k grit combo whetstone but will not hold a edge near as well as the jap steel will so there is a trade off there.Anyone that's on a budget and needs excellent knifes... Looking further then these is a waste of time. The steel is excellent, the factory edge is excellent, the knifes performance as a whole is excellent.... A 12 to 15 dollar knife that will hold its own with 100 dollar knifes out the package is exactly what these are.They aren't pretty, they aren't flawlessly balanced but they ARE low budget high performance knifes that leaves very very little on the table performance wise versus knifes costing literally 10x...

I purchased this based upon multiple positive reviews from barbecue 'masters'. After using this on a brisket I was going to smoke. Was extremely sharp out of the box. It handled the triming of the brisket easily, both cutting out the excess hard fat and precisely cutting out the membrane while leaving the meat intact below. The narrow and curved blade allowed me to accurately trim the brisket whereas my old knife always seemed to remove as much meat as it did membrane or fat. The handle gets a bit slick as you use it from the grease/fat/juices, but I think that will be the case for any knife like this. The handle feels nice in the hand and is comfortable to use. While I intended to use this only for barbecue, my wife has discovered it and now it is a preferred knife in the kitchen. Be aware, there is another version that looks just like this but with colorful handles. Those are not the same quality. Only this particular knife (with the white blade) is the one recommended on myriad sites and now by myself. I do wish it came in colors other than white, but that is a pretty minor thing (note to manufacturer . . . a red knife would look pretty awesome). Highly recommended (but come on . . . produce this wonderful knife in more colors please)