Knives Out, Knives In

A few months ago, I had a weird, knife-related thing happen to me. I was cutting an onion, as I’ve been known to do as the designated weeknight chef of the Smith household, only to have the blade of the large knife I was using literally fly off the handle. It flew in the air. Fortunately, it missed, ensuring I would write another day.

It was a sign that I had been using the same old knife set for way too long. Fortunately for me, I had a few fresh blades ready to go.

Over the last couple of months, I’ve been testing out the $119.99 imarku kitchen knife set, a well-crafted but not terribly expensive set of kitchen blades. (As “testing out” implies, this is a review unit that was sent to me by the manufacturer.)

Imagine me, the guy writing this piece, doing knife glamour shots. (Ernie Smith)

These very sharp Japanese-style knives, made of stainless steel, are presented as a single piece, with the handle mixed directly into the blade. These are sharp, attractive blades, and unless I invent a new way of damaging knives, I likely will not have a repeat incident of my handle-flying escapade.

Going back to my onion example, I generally would have to use a larger blade to cut the onion efficiently, because the knives I had were old, not as sharp as they once were, and didn’t really have a smooth motion at all. That’s actually part of the reason the blade flew that day—because I had to put more hand motion than necessary into cutting it. That is not the case with the imarku knives, which make quick work of veggies. In fact, if you wanted, you could probably use a steak knife in this set to cut an onion, and it would do a killer job.

I was very familiar with my old set of blades, which I had for more than a decade and generally did the job well. But weaknesses had emerged over time. The steak knives, which weren’t serrated, were ultimately less effective than the cheap black-plastic-handle set we had in our kitchen drawer. While they could be put in the dishwasher, their multi-piece design could at times sustain water, meaning they took time to dry. And, as mentioned above, I sometimes needed a bigger blade than the job really demanded.

Me in my natural onion-cutting habit.

These knives didn’t have any of those problems. The steak knives in this package, which are serrated, are unusually sharp, and work as well for cutting veggies as whatever cut of meat is on your plate. But it’s par for the course for these blades—the entire set of 16 knives is extremely sharp.

In terms of cleaning, they can be thrown into the dishwasher, no problem, but hand-washing is suggested for longer care. I can confirm the dishwasher works fine. No need to baby these knives just to get them cleaned.

If I had to call out downsides, I’d point out that the knife block is fairly large and imposing—in fact, when I tried to take the thing out of the box and put it back in at one point, it actually damaged the box because its size couldn’t be reined in. I have a kitchen that doesn’t have a massive amount of counter space, so this competes with it. (Fortunately, though, they’re good enough that I think we can make the counter-space sacrifice.)

Finally, I argue as well that the steak knives, being as sharp as the cooking knives, are a bit overkill for less-than-fancy dinners, where a somewhat less-aggressive cutting option might be better suited for the job. (You probably wouldn’t want to give a knife this sharp to a kid, for example.) But that said, they work well, and they don’t struggle with the job of cutting your meat. (That said, sharper knives, bigger risk of cutting yourself, but you knew that already.)

The set I have is admittedly more than I probably need, as I am not a professional chef or even a particularly sophisticated cook. (I can make a decent pasta dish, that said.) But imarku offers a number of sets that keep the spirit of this higher-end offering while being a bit more cost-conscious. For example, they offer a set of blades with plastic handles in a variety of colors (bright hues of orange, green, pink, purple, and red). With a $20 coupon added on Amazon, those knives (currently listed for $69.99) give you the spirit of the more expensive blades while offering more grippable handles. Imarku’s offerings also scale up a bit—this is a company that sells $45 butcher knives and chef-knife sets with more statement-piecey designs. But its lineup doesn’t top the $200 mark, as many knife sets on Amazon do.

In other words, it’s a pretty good set of knives that appear unlikely to threaten my life because of a handle incident. Sounds like a win to me.

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Find this an interesting product you’d like to check out? Check out the link at Amazon. And thanks to imarku for sending these blades along!