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" I&amp;#039;ve owned a santoku, an all-purpose Japanese chef&amp;#039;s knife, for more than a decade. I use it every day and I use it for just about everything \u2014 from peeling apples to carving a roast. It&amp;#039;s light, sharp, and totally utilitarian. I wouldn&amp;#039;t part with it. Still ... there are times when I find myself wanting something a little sturdier to work with. Specifically, the times I&amp;#039;m faced with a half-dozen rock-hard acorn squashes that needed to be split. Or five pounds of gnarly sweet potatoes to chop up for the Thanksgiving mash. Or a couple of big chickens that need to be butterflied for grilling. So I started looking for genuinely heavy-duty knives. Deliberately beefed-up tools designed for extra-tough jobs. I found four \u2014 two Japanese, two German. For consistency&amp;#039;s sake, and because it&amp;#039;s the most common size in home kitchens, I tested 8-inch (210 millimeter) models. Here&amp;#039;s what I learned.  Top to bottom: Bu-Rei-Zen heavy chef&amp;#039;s knife, Tojiro DP western deba The Bu-Rei-Zen heavy chef&amp;#039;s knife ($365, epicureanedge.com) and the Tojiro DP western deba ($125, chefknivestogo.com) are hybrids of the two basic Japanese kitchen knives, the deba and the gyuto. Debas are short, sharp cleavers used to cut up chicken and fish, bones and all. (Watch a guy who really knows what he&amp;#039;s doing use one to take apart a 100-pound tuna here.) Gyutos are the equivalent of European chef&amp;#039;s knives. Combine the two and you get a very heavy, very sharp blade capable of cleaving bones one minute and making carrot brunoise the next.  To manage this trick, you need a steel that is both incredibly tough and incredibly hard \u2014 tough to withstand the bonecutting and hard to take a razor edge. Traditionally, you could have one or the other, not both. But the Japanese steel industry works some crazy mojo. And that mojo is evident in both the Bu-Rei-Zen and the Tojiro. The latter&amp;#039;s cutting edge is made of VG-10 alloy, a so-called &amp;quot;super steel,&amp;quot; hardened to 60 on the Rockwell scale. The Bu-Rei-Zen is even more exotic, being made of Super Gold II powdered steel \u2014 a technique that involves fusing microscopic metal particles under extreme pressure to yield solid metals with exceptional properties. In the case of the Bu-Rei-Zen, it makes possible a blade of Rockwell 62 hardness and the toughness of an axe.  So how did they perform? Jaw-droppingly well. As anyone who has used Japanese knives knows, their edges are on a whole other plane, and the Bu-Rei-Zen and Tojiro have the two keenest edges I have ever tested. They are literally razor-sharp: I have a bare patch on my left forearm to prove it. Not surprisingly, each opened tough butternut squashes effortlessly, aided by their substantial weight \u2014 12 and 11 ounces, respectively, nearly twice the weight of a typical chef&amp;#039;s knife. Each then turned around and effortlessly shaved off paper-thin slices of the flesh, tough skin and all. Dicing was a breeze: the weight of the blades again did most of the work. Additionally, both blades took a salmon fillet off the bone in one terrifyingly smooth cut. The little pin bones sheared off like blades of grass.  I have one caveat: the actual physical forms of these blades take some getting used to. Unlike the knives most of us are familiar with, these do not taper substantially from the heel to the tip. The net effect is for the balance to be shifted forward \u2014 helpful when cleaving, but a bit awkward at first for slicing and chopping. The blades also retain considerable thickness almost all the way to the cutting edge. This makes them act something like wedges \u2014 again, a somewhat awkward sensation. Of the two, however, the Tojiro is slightly lighter in build than the Bu-Rei-Zen, a little more tapered, and a little more center-balanced and nimble as a result \u2014 closer to a gyuto, in other words, while the Bu-Rei-Zen is closer to a deba. In the course of a short test, the Tojiro felt more natural to me, and more genuinely multi-purpose. But I could get used to either one. And again: their actual performance was otherworldly.  Top to bottom: Wusthof wide cook&amp;#039;s knife, Messermeister Meridian Elite chef&amp;#039;s knife As for the German blades, I tested the Wusthof wide cook&amp;#039;s knife (about $140, wusthof.com) and the Messermeister Meridian Elite chef&amp;#039;s knife (about $99, messermeister.com). I&amp;#039;ve used Wusthof&amp;#039;s standard chef&amp;#039;s knife before, and liked it. The quality is high, the finish precise if not artful, and the design refined by years of evolution. But the wide chef&amp;#039;s knife I really liked. It has the same high quality and solid finish, but the blade is both considerably thicker \u2014 nearly 1/4 inch at the spine, as opposed to less than 1/8 for the standard \u2014 and considerably broader. That breadth has benefits: more clearance for your knuckles; a nice big surface to scoop prepped food from the cutting board to the pan; and a long taper that renders the cutting edge of the blade as thin as that of a regular chef&amp;#039;s knife, despite the much thicker spine. All that plus the increased weight makes the wide cook&amp;#039;s knife an unambiguously superior version of the classic \u2014 think of it as the V8 upgrade from the standard V6. It handled the squash effortlessly; fine dicing and chopping, in particular, were more natural than with the Japanese knives. Filleting the salmon was not quite as smooth, but still a pleasure.  My one complaint? The full bolster, or knuckle guard. Bolsters help balance knives, but after just a few sharpenings of the blade, they need to be filed down \u2014 a tricky job to do at home \u2014 otherwise they interfere with the contact between blade and cutting surface. That does not sound like a big deal until you find yourself using a knife that almost but not quite cuts all the way through whatever you&amp;#039;re working on. Then it quickly makes you nuts. Still, this is a great knife \u2014 and a professional knife sharpener can keep it in working order for you for a few bucks a year. That leaves the Messermeister.  Before I conducted this knife test I had never even heard of the company. Now I&amp;#039;m surprised it&amp;#039;s not every bit as famous as Wusthof and the other major German brand, Henckels. The knife I tested, the Meridian Elite chef&amp;#039;s, is not in fact a heavier version of its standard model, but the standard model itself. But at 9.5 ounces and 3/16 of an inch, it&amp;#039;s about 30 percent heavier and thicker than most standard models, and at 2 inches, slightly broader as well. A couple of tactile distinctions jumped out the first time I held it, too. It is exceptionally well-balanced, and exceptionally comfortable in the hand. The fit and finish are equal to the Wusthof: precise but not showy.  In testing, the Messermeister cut like a dream; it was noticeably sharper than the Wusthof. (Though not anything like the Japanese knives: German steel is deliberately tempered to a lower Rockwell hardness, usually 56 to 58, reducing potential sharpness but increasing toughness.) As the thinnest blade of the lot, it was not surprising that it slid through the squash with the greatest ease; it also filleted the salmon a bit more smoothly than the Wusthof, though again, not on par with the Japanese knives.  But it&amp;#039;s little details in construction that make the Messermeister so pleasurable to use. The traditional riveted handles are beveled more deeply than usual, which makes for a much more comfortable grip*. The back edges of the blade are rounded off, making the pinch grip (you do use a pinch grip, right?) less likely to cause irritation to your thumb and forefinger. There&amp;#039;s no bolster, meaning the full length of the blade can be sharpened each time. The cutting edge is sharpened to 15 degrees, Japanese-style, rather than the 20 degrees of European convention*. (Translation: it&amp;#039;s sharper.) And the edge itself is hand-ground to a convex point \u2014 harder to produce than the standard V edge, but longer-lasting. And hey, you can&amp;#039;t beat the price. Messermeister&amp;#039;s anonymity in the market is your gain at the cash register. (* Is imitation the sincerest form of flattery? I noticed today that Wusthof has released a new version of their Classic line with more deeply rounded handles and a 14-degree edge.) To sum up: I started out to see whether a heavy-duty knife is a worthwhile investment, and the answer is a clear yes. Either of the Japanese knives tested here would make a terrific addition to your kitchen. The Bu-Rei-Zen is something of a specialized blade, while the Tojiro could conceivably serve as an everyday chef&amp;#039;s knife. But both are special tools that you&amp;#039;ll find plenty of uses for. I also strongly recommend the Wusthof as a heavy-duty knife, capable of rough work \u2014 but truth be told, it&amp;#039;s also worth considering as your daily knife if you don&amp;#039;t already own one.  As for the Messermeister, it&amp;#039;s not quite as beefed-up as the others here. Before the test, I wouldn&amp;#039;t have thought I&amp;#039;d go for it \u2014 wouldn&amp;#039;t have thought it could meaningfully supplement, let alone replace, my santoku. And it hasn&amp;#039;t replaced it. At least not yet. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/food/a8078/best-kitchen-knives-under-100/>