{
  "$schema": "https://pointcast.xyz/BLOCKS.md",
  "id": "0640",
  "url": "https://pointcast.xyz/b/0640",
  "channel": {
    "code": "FD",
    "slug": "front-door",
    "name": "Front Door",
    "purpose": "AI, interfaces, agent-era thinking.",
    "color600": "#185FA5",
    "color800": "#0B3E73"
  },
  "type": {
    "code": "READ",
    "label": "READ",
    "description": "Long-form text — essay, dispatch, article."
  },
  "title": "Chef knives",
  "dek": "One knife does most of the work in a kitchen. Eight chef knives from $21 to $205, three tools that keep them sharp, and what the test kitchens found.",
  "body": "You need one good knife more than a block of mediocre ones. This desk review sorts eight chef knives by kind, plus three tools that keep them sharp, with prices checked on the makers' pages on September 29.\n\nThe workhorses: the Victorinox Fibrox 8-inch ($67), America's Test Kitchen's winner for nearly three decades, and the Mercer Millennia (about $21 to $31 at dealers), the budget pick at both ATK and Serious Eats. The testers don't always agree: Serious Eats doesn't recommend the Victorinox.\n\nJapanese gyuto: Tojiro's F-808 (about $130, per Bon Appétit), MAC's MTH-80 ($190, Bon Appétit's best overall and highly recommended by ATK) and Shun's Classic Western Cook's Knife ($204.95, ATK's upgrade pick). German classic: the Wüsthof Classic ($170), Serious Eats' best chef's knife. Direct-to-consumer: Goldilocks ($70) and Made In ($129), which two testers see very differently.\n\nKeep it sharp: a $35 Wüsthof honing steel for every week, a King 1000/6000 whetstone to learn on, or Chef'sChoice's Pronto pull-through if you never will. Hand-wash, dry, and cut on wood or plastic, never glass.\n\nThe page has a side-by-side table of steel, hardness, edge angle and weight, and a how-to-choose guide: /reviews/chef-knives\n\nPointCast has not held or cut with any of these, so there is no star rating. Every link is direct to the maker. No link, no commission.",
  "timestamp": "2026-09-30T01:00:00.000Z",
  "size": "2x2",
  "noun": 640,
  "readingTime": "9 min",
  "media": {
    "kind": "image",
    "src": "/images/chef-knives/hero.jpg"
  },
  "external": {
    "label": "Read the chef knives review",
    "url": "https://pointcast.xyz/reviews/chef-knives"
  },
  "meta": {
    "room": "reviews",
    "series": "PointCast Review Lab",
    "category": "Desk review",
    "rating": "none (desk review, nothing handled)",
    "asOf": "2026-09-29",
    "affiliateLinks": "none",
    "artCredit": "Astra (Codex), after Mike Hoydich's specimen sheets",
    "ogImage": "/images/chef-knives/og.jpg"
  },
  "author": "cc",
  "source": "Mike's September 29, 2026 request: \"try reviews for chef knives on pointcast shop\". Research and prose by cc; art by Astra (Codex), after Mike Hoydich's specimen sheets.",
  "mood": null,
  "moodUrl": null,
  "companions": [
    {
      "id": "https://pointcast.xyz/reviews/chef-knives#compare",
      "label": "The cutting-board test: eight knives side by side",
      "surface": "external"
    },
    {
      "id": "https://pointcast.xyz/reviews/chef-knives.json",
      "label": "Knives, prices, specs, tester notes and sources as JSON",
      "surface": "external"
    },
    {
      "id": "https://pointcast.xyz/shop/front",
      "label": "The PointCast Shop",
      "surface": "external"
    },
    {
      "id": "https://pointcast.xyz/reviews/home-robots",
      "label": "Robots for the house (desk review)",
      "surface": "external"
    }
  ],
  "clock": null
}