Babish 6.5-Inch Carving Fork – High-Carbon 1.411 German Steel Cutlery – Professional Kitchen Meat Fork for Carving & Serving

If you're a fan of the YouTube creator making these tools, I doubt that you need to hear my opinion on this but if you are not familiar with the creator who makes these tools then this review is for you. The knife is CRAZY quality for the price. He really COOKED (good one huh) with these knives. The handle is such a fantastic shape that fits in your hand nicely. The blade is large, sharp, and will keep its edge for quite a while. Completely easy to clean and dishwasher safe. Being high-carbon German steel, its made of about the same stuff that Wusthof knives are made of, which means it will last you quite a while. A quality knife is not based on how sharp it is out of the box, its how sharp it remains in 6 months and having quite a few of Babish's knives already, I can attest to the fact that they wont need to be sharpened but once a year. Incredible product, appears to me that years of research went into the creation of the knife.

I'm a bit of a knife nerd. I'm not gonna be that guy that lists all my knives, but suffice to say this is on the board with some pretty premium cutlery. Here's why I adore this thing: Oh, quick note before starting. Get a sharpener. No kitchen knife stays sharp forever and a sharp knife makes a world of difference. Remember, at the end of the day all a premium knife does is stay sharp longer. If you just get good at sharpening this could be end game. I recommend the King double sided whetstone, and watch the Adam Ragusea sharpening video. And practice! Alright, why I love this knife! - Room For Growth Even if you upgrade later, this can stay in your collection to ram through joints or hammer through a hard squash when you'd feel bad doing that with your other knives. Or when you just want to do a quick task and put the knife in the dishwasher, you can! No exotic wood handle to shrink or high carbon steel to discolor! - Serious Geometry: This knife is well balanced and it feels great in the hand. There's no heal (where the bolster extends all the way down to the back of the blade) so you can easily sharpen the whole thing with a single whetstone. - Guest-Proof It lives on the magnet board next all my others. When guests come over who don't know how to treat a knife I can hand them this! It doesn't feel like an insult because it's still a serious knife and I keep it razor sharp so it performs beautifully. But then I can watch them cut a sandwich directly on a stoneware plate without even one tear rolling down my cheek! Just chuck it in the washer, sharpen again, and back it goes. - Excellent Durability It's a soft steel so it doesn't chip and it sharpens easily. Bit of a plus or minus here, but if you have a real knife like this you should also have a sharpener. There's really no task this thing can't do.

A couple of things to get out of the way first. I am not a trained chef. I am not a professional cook. I am not a cutlery or forging expert. I'm not going to bore anyone at parties with my knowledge of metallurgy or knife-making. My primitive intellect doesn't understand alloys and compositions and things with... molecular structures. Any knowledge I really have comes from watching YouTube videos, experimenting with recipes, and failing or succeeding over several decades in the kitchen. I did discover somewhat early on that unlike golf where I can buy the most expensive clubs sold, I will still be a pretty bad golfer, in the kitchen, good tools can help even a bad cook be a better cook. I also have a brother in law who is a trained and (formerly) professional chef, who has complimented me on numerous occasions for having good quality cook and prep-ware. That out of the way, I am rating this knife entirely on its own merits, price point, etc. My five-star rating is for a $18 knife (which it was when I bought it, though I've noticed the price fluctuates a little bit). Certainly anything I say about it might vary if it were a $150 knife. It is not. So take that into account. I have been a fan of Andrew Rea's cooking videos for quite a long time, and when he started selling products, I wanted to support him. I have a few things from the Babish line, including the tiny whisks (HIGHLY recommended, you'll be surprised by how much you use them), the small prep bowl (again, extremely useful), and the iron trivet, which I bought because it sort of looks like me and that's fun. But one thing I really love is knives. Knives make me sort of starry-eyed, and I love having a new one. In fact, I have many more than I really need. Especially if you ask my wife. I bought this sort of as a low-risk bet, more than a real need for it. I was curious. I wanted to know how a $18 knife would hold up. Worst case, I figured, is I would hate it and donate it to a nephew or something. I didn't. Most of my knives are forged and made in Germany. They are typically Messermeister, Wustoff, or Zwilling. Not the most expensive knives you can buy for sure, but definitely above average. Before I got married, I had a block of Chicago Cutlery knives, which got the job done, but they were kind of cheap stamped-steel rigs. Decent for college knives, but not awesome. I only say this to give you an idea of what I'm comparing this to. I do not have wildly expensive professional cutlery, but I do have nice stuff. I honestly expected this to be a pretty below average knife, but perhaps probably okay for the price. Like a Target special. When it arrived, I was more impressed with it than I expected to be. It's well packaged, a nice weight, pretty well balanced, and sharp. The handle is comfortable and it looks nice. Nothing about it screams loudly that it doesn't belong with its much more expensive German counterparts. The shape is unique, and pretty cool. Especially if you're only looking to have a couple, two or three, knives in your collection. It's become one of my go-to knives for vegetables, chopping, etc. I used it tonight on a tri-tip and it slices meat competently as well. I always hand-wash my knives, so I can't say whether it holds up to machine washing, or how well. Don't put your knives in the dishwasher. Come on. I do not know the metal composition, nor do I care all that much. For the price, I'm guessing it's probably a lower-grade steel, but that's fine. I also don't know how long it will hold an edge over the long-term, but two months later, a couple of passes on a ceramic steel and it's still going strong. I assume it's full tang. It feels like it is, but if it's not, again, I'm not sure I care. The construction is all at least average. Even my chef brother-in-law was reasonably impressed with it, and his knives, I'm pretty certain, were forged in the fires of Mount Doom by ancient trolls, or something. I would possibly buy more Babish knives, but then I'd probably have to get a divorce. Because I don't know where I'd store them, along with the scores of other knives I have that I don't display or use. But if these were the only knives I had, I think they'd be fine. I'd be perfectly okay gifting these to someone just starting to build their culinary skills and collection. Again, if this was $150, I may feel differently about it, but it's not, and I do not. For the price, this checks all the boxes for me.

I just moved into a new home and am replacing the essentials that my old roommate used to own. Obviously, for anyone who cooks at home, you need a few decent knives. Now, my background and current job is working in bars/restaurants. I work on the bar side of things, but have definitely been around commercial kitchens where cooks come in with their daily-driver types of knives. Sure, you have high end restaurants / chefs who own and use $300+ knives (cost per knife), but for most people working in kitchens, they're looking for affordable, good quality knives they can use daily. This knife seems to fit that bill. Granted, it's a serrated bread knife, so it has limited uses. Personally, at home, I'm never slicing bread. All the bread I purchase comes pre-sliced unless you're talking about kaiser rolls or sub style buns. But, my primary use for a bread knife at home is slicing fragile fruits and vegetables like tomatoes and citrus, and cutting sandwiches in half. At my bar we've been using the same restaurant supply store brand serrated knife to prep our bar fruit for 5 years. It was probably a $10 knife at the very most. It still works well, and it has definitely seen a ton of use. Never sharpened once. So, for myself at home, I wanted to buy a good quality bread knife that wouldn't break the bank. I didn't want to go cheap like $10, but didn't want to spend over $50 either. I saw this on Amazon and it fit the bill and had good reviews, so I ordered it. I really love how this knife feels. Great weight balance, and feels quality. It came out of the box super sharp, and I've had a chance to test drive it on slicing tomatoes for sandwiches, and it's super accurate. You can go paper thin if you wanted, and it won't "warble" and start going sideways like some poor quality serrated knives can do. I then made a sandwich and cut it in half. It cut through all of the meat, veggies, and bread like butter. Seriously, like two passes and the sandwich was perfectly cut with nothing dangling and hanging on, it was like a laser cut. I did a bit of research after buying this knife, and saw some reviews out there saying Babish knives will lose their edge fast. That's fine by me, that will happen to any knife, that's why there are wetstones and sharpeners out there, so that's not a,n issue for me. Also, I want to note that I didn't know who Babish was before buying this knife, so I'm not purchasing this as a fanboy or anything. I bought it purely on the price, design and reviews. The reality is, is that you can buy a whole knife set with a wood block for about $50-$80. So, spending $24 on just one knife might seem dumb. But, for 99.9% of home cooking you only need a few knives. A good santoku, a bread knife, and arguably some decent steak knives (depending if you serve your steak pre-cut or not). Those entire knife sets come with about 8 knives you'll probably never need to use, and trying to save a few bucks by buying the whole set will compromise the quality of all the knives. All that being said, I'm happy with my purchase. I also bought the santoku knife this brand offers. Again, I don't mind sharpening knives. I've done it A LOT. If, for whatever reason, these knives can't hold an edge for like a week of general use over time (like some other reviews online say), I'll probably come back here an update my review. But, I just don't see it happening based on the quality of materials used and my week's worth of use on it so far. Are there better knives out there? Of course. Do you really need them as a home cook? Probably not. If you're on a budget and just want a few good knives, I would recommend this brand for sure.

I wish it was slightly heavier. Blade is sharp, though. It's a very inexpensive/affordable knife. I know it probably won't last as a long as my Wusthof, but it'll do for now. This brand of knife makes good gifts for people who are beginner cooks or don't care to have the high-end cutlery.

By Bill Marsano, independent product tester and home cook. Anyone interested in value for money should consider this knife for its high quality, Japanese style (although it’s made in China) and impressively low price. I bought one for myself and another, later, as a gift. Both arrived very sharp out of the box and have stood up well to use by conscientious home cooks. (I have since bought and been pleased by Babish’s “Clef” and Santoku.) All are made from 1.4116 stainless steel, one of the cutlery industry's standard steels because of its stain-resistance, durability and ease of cleaning and honing. Edge retention is very good—treated well, the knives will stay sharp far longer that ‘bargain’ blades made of softer steel. Please note: a couple of fear-mongering reviews claim that the knife is dangerous because it is so sharp and has no bolster. This is ignorant nonsense. First, if you have used only very dull knives, you will need to go slowly with this or any other sharp knife. Second, the heel (back end) of the blade is perpendicular to the cutting edge, so your hand cannot slide forward onto the cutting edge--period. Bolsters may aid balance or be relics of earlier forging technology, but they are in no way safety features. No Japanese knives have bolsters because they interfere with sharpening and prevent use of the pull-cut technique. (Zwilling, Wusthof and other leading brands offer both bolster and no-bolster models). To keep your knife sharp, use a “steel” or “butcher’s steel” (a.k.a. “honing rod”). A good steel (not ceramic or diamond-coated but all steel) will cost more than the knife (See Amazon’s 12” Zwillings) but will save many times its cost (and inconvenience) in professional sharpening. Learn to use it from your butcher and some online videos, and use it OFTEN.—Mr. Marsano steels his knives after every use. None has ever been sharpened and some are a decade old. He uses only no-bolster knives and still has all the fingers he was born with.

This is the best knife for your money!! The handle has a good weight to it and feels sturdy and the knife is super sharp! I love it!

Great knife set! I have followed Andrew (Babish) for years and I just recently started a job in a kitchen and decided I’d like to get myself a knife kit started. But, they’re all so expensive! Not this set though! $20/knife and a roll bag to go with it!? The other chefs at work also like the look and feel of the knives and were also surprised when I told them I only spent $60! Extremely sharp right off the bat! So be careful there! I brought them home and cleaned them after work and it looks like I haven’t even used them! Very easy to clean. Very comfortable handgrips as well and the size is perfect. Functions very well and compares very closely to our dalstrong knives!