SAMCOOK Kiritsuke Chef Knife - 8 Inch Professional Sharp Damascus Knife - Japanese VG-10 High Carbon Stainless Steel Kitchen Gyuto knife - Ergonomic Octagonal Ebony Handle with Gift Box

I'll be honest, I had real doubts about this one. But it won me over completely. This isn't just "better than expected" territory, it is genuinely a great knife, period. Edge retention has been impressive, seems very durable too and sharpening it is surprisingly easy even for a beginner like me. The handle is comfortable to use and the whole thing looks beautiful. Damascus steel never gets old. One minor note: it doesn't come with a full edge guard, only the tip is protected, not the heel. Would have been a nice touch to include, but it's a small gripe on an otherwise excellent knife. The size is perfect for me, but it depends on your taste and needs so make sure you consider that. Highly recommend.

I kinda love this knife! The kiritsuke style blade is a great all around knife. I’m using this as my main tool in a commercial kitchen. This knife has stayed pretty sharp throughout a lot of use. I give it a light sharpening once a week and have a ceramic rod handy during the week.

So I was browsing Amazon to look for a back-up knife for other people in my house to use and not mess up my high end knives. Then I came across this knife by Sam Cook. It looked way too good to be true since the blade material is well known, the shape of the blade is desired, the handle style is on higher end knives, and the price being under $40. Who else wouldn't be skeptical of a product like this? I decided to take the risk and buy it. If I don't like it, it's only $35. All I can say is that this is a damn good knife for the money. It looks amazing and came pretty sharp. With a closer look, I notice that there are small imperfections like you can feel the metal decoration stuck out ever so slightly on the handle and that it looks like the Damascus is etched on but I'm not sure on that. It's a burner knife for $35 so it doesn't bother me. I don't believe the blade material is vg10. I like to re-sharpen new knives I get to make them wicked sharp. The ease of sharpening let's me know the material is softer than my other vg10 knives, but oh boy it took a nice edge. In summary, if you are looking for a good knife to explore your culinary talents without breaking the budget, any knife from these samcook guys will do it for you. I literally ordered another 2, the big bob kramer clone and this one, to keep for myself. Definitely a good buy in my opinion.

Pros: 1. Great blade shape, length, and height 2. Authentic eastern style handle with authentic blade weight balance (Black Sandalwood handle) 3. Great value for the price Cons: 1. It came somewhat dull, which required some after market sharpening (easy to fix) 2. I'm not a huge fan of the mirror finish (cosmetic) 3. The damascus etching seems a bit fake (cosmetic) With a tiny bit of sharpening this knife performs extremely well. Even though it's made in China, I would recommend this knife to anyone looking to get into using Japanese style knives and learning how to sharpen their own knives. It's insane (good) value for the price you pay. It's a good knife for anyone to learn on or use for everyday cooking and it's very affordable to replace if it was ever somehow stolen or broken beyond repair. --- I don't know if it's actually VG-10, it doesn't have the same feel as my other VG-10 knives exactly but this knife does perform very well. This knife is extremely good at this price point. I bought one with an octagonal handle (Black Sandalwood) since it's the only one that seemed like a half-tang knife. The knife is balanced very well. The one I bought is blade-weighted meaning that the fulcrum is slightly more to the blade end. This is very good for when you use a pinch-grip with your thumb and finger on the sides of the blade and this is exactly the type of balance I would expect from a blade of this design. In comparison, most of the "Japanese" budget knives I've seen on amazon that look nice don't have the same balance as this one. The profile and shape of the knife is great. It's got a good height to it which I like a lot since my fingers are a bit long and have trouble fitting comfortably on more shallow knives. Sharpness The blade was not very sharp out of the box, to my standards. To be clear I like my knives to be hair shaving razor sharp. Out of the box this knife bounced off of tomato skin, meaning that it wasn't able to cut through tomatoes super easily. To fix this I gave it a few passes on my 1,000 and 5,000 grit whetstones and a leather strop. It's now hair shaving razor sharp and performs extremely well, even when compared to my higher end knives in the $100-300 price range.

Best knife we have. Comes sharp and has stayed sharp.

This is a pretty darn good knife for the price its at. i bought it just because ive been hearing good things about some chinese made knives so i ordered one just out of curiosity and sure enough this thing is fantastic.1st, its real san mai construction, and 2nd it keeps its edge for several days in a volume kitchen, which is a feat in itself. Even some of my 150+ dollar knives wont do that. so take the leap, you wont be sorry.

The edge retention was just below perfect for a household that cooks two meals a day with it. The blade protection was not offered in a disposable or cheap scabbard or guard or anything, the packaging was immaculate I must say. It functions perfectly as a chef’s knife, please do not use it as a cleaver (the pictures are the result of that). It holds an incredibly sharp edge that cuts through frozen boneless meat easily as well as sweet potatoes and others. It is balanced perfectly for a pinch grip as the center of mass is just in front of the handle. The durability is incredible. These are pictures after my father decided to chop up a centipede (on a tiled floor) inside the house with it, it has only one chip that is half a milimeter big. Sucks that the handle wasn’t made from a straighter wood so that it could be easily repaired tho.

Très beau couteau ! Surprenant la coupe est wow la finition superbe !

Súper filoso, fue un regalo para mi esposo y le encantó

Wow so sharp very good

It's original Damascus..no worries..go ahead

Excelente calidad, super afilado desde el inicio y muy estable.