Kitchen Item Review: Victorinox Fibrox Chef's Knife

 For the first 18 years of our marriage (and cooking life), we used a Cutco chef's knife that we got as a wedding present.  It was a very solid knife for us, and we happily used it, getting it sharpened less often than we should have.  We still have it.  It has a good handle that feels nice in your hand, and the knife looks essentially the same as when we got it.  It's well made and has worn well.

We kept reading in Cook's Illustrated, though, about the high-value Victorinox Fibrox 8" chef's knife.  They praise the shape and texture of the handle and the very sharp blade.  We ordered one through a local kitchen store that we like, but they're available lots of places including Amazon.  Although it's apples and oranges, the knife really performs better than our 18-year-old knife.  One can get used to cutting performance that's not optimal.  When a more optimal knife comes along, it pleasantly surprises.   At around $30, this is a fabulous deal.  For comparison, if we were to buy the current version of our Cutco knife, it would run round four times as much as the Fibrox.  Anyone starting a kitchen from scratch would do well to stock one of these.

Thanksgiving this year, we deployed both chef's knives at once for the first time.  That felt like sumptuous luxury.