I am soon to be moving to a house with a very nice kitchen, and so the time has come for me to buy myself a proper set of knives. I have been looking around at the various types available. There seem to be cheaper steel knives with plastic or wooden handles (e.g. from normal homeware stores), pro-range solid steel knives (e.g. Global) and also ceramic knives. As much as I'd like to buy something like the Global knives, they are quite expensive and so I've been looking at what else is out there.
While I'm pretty sure the pro-range steel knives will outperform the cheap steel knives, I have no idea how good ceramic knives are.
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Are there reasons why I might want to choose ceramic over steel or vice versa?
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What are the things to look out for when buying knives?
Best Answer
In general, ceramic knives are great for what they do, but too fragile to do everything. They can shatter if dropped on a hard surface, and can easily get get notched on bone. I use my ceramics exclusively for vegetables for that reason.
If you're strapped for funds, you really only need to by one expensive knife (a steel chef's knife or santoku), and one cheap one (a serrated knife for cutting bread). After that, picking up knife skills is more important and will make your cooking better than any investment in more knives.