XINZUO 8.5 Inch Japanese Kiritsuke Chef Knife with Sheath, Hand Forged 67 Layers Damascus Steel Kitchen Knife, Ultra Sharp, Japanese Chopping Knife with Olive Wood Octagonal Handle,Gift Box

Work in a restaurant as a chef de partie so I just buy knives I think look nice and such.The wooden handle on this knife is incredible very nice grip doesn't slip and I can hold firm my favourite part about the knife is the wooden sheath with the magnet inside it doesn't fall out even when I rigoursly shake it off and perfectly fits the knife.Don't often find knives that come with a sheath and most of the time the sheath is cheap or not really effective.

Is it real Damascus? I have no idea. I do have a 'fake' laser printed Damascus knife and this is obviously leagues different and does appear to be genuine.The blade is polished very highly which can sometimes make it a bit slippy to handle - and I'd say the same for the handle as it's polished olive wood, which personally I wish was oak or walnut.It appears to have a plastic? tang which I would expect to be a more premium material considering the cost of the item.It really is super sharp, and has a very prominent point to it so you need to be careful. It's also much lighter than you would imagine so do have to be careful handling. It actually slid off my countertop on to a tiled floor. You can imagine the horror, and how lucky I was it landed flat on the side and didn't actually damage any of the blade or handle. Phew.It's actually fairly bigger than I was expecting which isn't a bad thing.It does come with what looks like a walnut holder that you can slip it into which has some satisfying magnets. Only thing is its easy to get it in the wrong way round as it looks similar both ways.Main gripe is cost - is it worth £100? To me, not personally. I mean it doesn't have divets which means vegetables do get stuck to it from the suction. Which means I then need a different knife for that job. Making this very specific for my tasks e.g. meat. If you've got the money to spare, you won't be disappointed I'm sure.

My latest and most favourite kitchen knife. Extremely sharp out of the box. So far it’s holding its edge. I love the wooden knife holder.Would buy again for sure.

This is a Chinese copy rather than an original Japanese knife, but it's attractive, and pretty sharp. It's also somewhat cheaper than a genuine hand forged professional Japanese chef knife, of which I'm lucky enough to own a selection. If you want the finest knife, invest in an original, but be prepared to pay at least three or four times as much for it.This style of wood and horn handle is typical of Japanese chefs knives, and the octagonal cross section provides superb grip and control. The knife tang is firmly fixed in the handle and although it's not full tang like most Western cooks knives, this is not intended for heavy chopping You can think of this as a precision instrument - a thin surgeons scalpel that relies on sharpness, rather than a thick and heavy meat cleaver that relies on weight and brute force. I like using this knife, and I enjoy the lightness and the finesse of working with it.The Damascus on my sample is genuine, with real layers of steel. As always, you'll need to keep this honed, to preserve the edge. Once you ding or nick the cutting edge you MUST hone that out, otherwise the blunted part will become worse, and performance will quickly be lost. Kept properly sharp, this will slice a tomato paper thin with no effort at all.