Not his kitchen he just has to work in it.

They have their priorities right.

i have different sizes. i find the long one the most useful and comfortable. im pretty tall so i think its a propotional thing.

Compensation.

A lot of people can get by with a single knife. I think OP here is a lot deeper into the hobby of either cooking or knives. I can acknowledge at least that deboning a chicken or turkey with a santoku isn't very pleasant

i have a nice hecknels 8” “universal” chefs knife. if i could only have one that might be it, but with all the choices, its never the best for anything and i ended up never using it so its now in storage.

For me:

• Thinner boning/fish knife for finding cartilage seams between bones, or deboning certain cuts. My chef's knife is too big to navigate a curved path through meat, at least not precisely.
• Thicker/heavier cleaver for cutting through bones directly. I don't want to chip my chef's knife blade on very forceful cuts.
• Rectangular Nakiri is great for chopping firm vegetables with a blade edge that's in a straight line, rather than the curved edge of a chef's knife (which usually calls for a rocking or slicing motion when chopping).
• Serrated bread knife for bread. I don't want to be crushing a freshly baked loaf too much while slicing into it.
• Cheap/shitty serrated bread knife for ice.
• Long carving knife for presentation, tableside carving of a roast or ham or things like that. If I'm carving back in the kitchen I'm probably just using a chef's knife rather than grabbing something new to have to clean.

Everything else in the kitchen, I use a chef's knife. I had a one-knife kitchen for like the first 10 years of my adult life, before branching out to a vegetable knife and a boning knife. The other stuff is more recent (ice knife when I got really into cocktails around 2015, bread knife when I was part of that sourdough craze of 2020).

I also have knives for serving (butter knives, steak knives, cheese knives for charcuterie platters, etc.), but that's not really a kitchen function.

A good chef's knife serves a lot of purposes very well and gets the most use in my house. But some knives are better for some tasks. I have a chefs knife that I use for the majority of chopping tasks for cooking prep. But I also have paring knifes for slicing small things, fruits, cheese, etc. or where finess is required that a chef knife is too unwieldy for the job, a bread knife for bread (duh), a boning knife (it doesn't get a ton of use but is nice to have when needed), and a very nice Santoku knife I only whip out when I need to butcher a chicken or something and need a bit if chef knife and a bit of cleaver. I also have serrated knives for cutting meats, and butter knives for butters and spreads.

Seriously, I have a chef's knife, santoku, and a paring knife and I feel bougie as fuck.

none of those are expensive! i have some wustoff and henknels but they are no longer in my workng set. just too… plain? they were 8” chefs knives which i found i almost never used. check out winco knives. they are great quality and very reasonable

Even budget knives benefit a lot from being sharp. A Spyderco Sharpmaker will last a lifetime and is enough for most home cooks. The rolling sharpeners are okay for plenty of people, too, particularly if you’re not worried about scratching up the blade’s face.

I would rather use a sharp IKEA knife than a dull expensive knife.

Things that like to stick to the blade. Typically cheese.

Is the magnet on the strip good if so could please you send me a link? Its very hard to tell when buying them online. Tysm!

The Yuki line really is solid, I like my 240mm Yuki gyuto a lot. Nice grind, some interesting concavity, super thin behind the edge. Really good cutter. I think mine’s closer to 60HRC, retention is only okay but it sharpens insanely easily, just loves any degree of polish you throw at it.

I had one of the sujihikis for a while, too, decent knife but I didn’t like it as much.

Several years ago I wanted a Yuki long petty, say 200mm on the edge. Now it would be more than I’d want to pay.

Cool, new content!

nice! in a tool ket too. i see you like longer knives as well. 8” just isnt enough for me most of the time.

yeah its a beast. 12”. im pretty tall so it just fits better and help me reach the cutting board more naturally. it also is amazing for mellons or anything big but before the chinese chefs knife it was my usual goto and replaced my much more expensive standard size chefs knife on the board.

the chinese chefs knife/cleaver has been getting a lot of use lately. its neck in neck with the 12” for most used

I had a similar knife set 10+ years ago which I invested in when starting a chef apprenticeship. The removalists lost that box during a move interstate, I died a little that day.