Sternsteiger Achilles Chef's Knife Review

Sternsteiger Achilles Chef's Knife Review

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Takeaway: Beautifully designed, elegant, and satisfyingly sharp


The Achilles knife is made from a single solid piece of forged stainless steel and as a result the handle is actually fairly thick and heavy. This balances out with the long blade length, however, the actual cutting edge is only about 7.5". You'll notice here where the bolster typically is a circular cutout, which is ostensibly for improving your grip on the knife, though I'm not convinced that I love it the feel of it in my hand, especially if I choke up a bit and place either my thumb or side of my index finger over the hole. An interesting feature of having such a wide handle is that the knife is self-supporting in the vertical position. However it balances in both the edge up and edge down which in the edge up position poses an obvious safety hazard and even in the edge down position you'll have to watch that knife point. The center of balance of the knife sits just behind the hole cutout and this ends up being the point where I feel most comfortable gripping or pinching the knife with my fingers. Out of the box, the knife does have a factory edge on it. Visually inspecting and testing it against the flat of my finger I could tell it's sharp but not razor sharp. The blade angle on this knife is 20 degrees double-beveled which is standard giving you a good balance between sharpness and durability given the hardness of the steel.

I put the knife through a few tests including the paper test, ripe tomato, hard vegetable, and cooked meat. The knife performed as well as I'd hoped, though did require some honing after a few uses. However, a few quick draws through a conventional knife sharpener and the edge was sharp to my satisfaction. Overall, this knife performed well within my expectations. It's a handsome tool with a serviceable edge, even for a few uses out of the box. I'm not sold on the hole cutout as a functional element, but it's a very interested design feature that might look cool on a magnetic knife bar. For your basic chopping, slicing, and mincing needs, it should serve you pretty well in the kitchen.

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