Choosing your Cutlery

Complete your cutlery collection

The most important element of buying cutlery is to make sure you complete the collection. Let us take knives for example. Here is a list of all the knives that can form part of your cutlery set.

-       8” chef’s knife

-       8” bread knife

-       8” carving knife

-       7” fillet knife

-       7” Santoku knife

-       7” cleaver

-       6” utility knife

-       5½” boning knife

-       5” serrated utility knife

-       3” or 4” paring knife

Of course, there are other elements that form part of cutlery, forks and spoons for instance. You should similarly go through the different types of forks and spoons that form parts of cutlery sets and purchase them too. The idea is to create two separate sets of cutlery. One set would be for regular use the other set would be in use when there are guests at home.

Which steel to choose in cutlery?

Steel is the material that is used in making most cutlery. However, there are different types of stainless steel that you can look at as far as cutlery is concerned – stainless steel, carbon steel, high carbon stainless steel and VG10 steel. All these different types of steels have certain features that you should know about and accordingly make your choice. For instance, the G in VG10 indicates Gold, which essentially means that this steel is the gold standard in the domain of cutlery. Made in Japan, VG10 steel is simply the best as cutlery material.

Consider the look and feel of your cutlery

Look and feel does matter when you intend to buy new cutlery. You may purchase some basic stuff for regular use but those cutlery items will surely not go down too well when you have guests at home. Cutlery, even though it is made of steel, does show signs of wear and tear when in regular use. However, when there are guests, you want to give them that special feeling by getting the cutlery out of the cabinet. It is important for you to keep in mind that people form perceptions about you as a host looking at how you treat them – and you can rest assured that how your cutlery looks has a bearing on this perception building.

Which type of style should you opt for?

Continuing with look and feel, there are different styles that you can look at. Antique styled cutlery is heavy to hold and offers that rich feel. However, the steel could rust because it is mostly carbon steel and children could have issues managing such cutlery. You may want to look at contemporary styled cutlery where stainless steel is used and the items are much lighter.

Get your entire cutlery set at once

How many cutlery items should you buy? Here is a simple formula for you to follow. Many people purchase cutlery items gradually. However, there are a couple of issues that they face. The first issue is where they are not able to make a match when they make a subsequent purchase. The second issue is where they pay more per item than what they would have paid had they bought a complete set. When you purchase a complete set, you also don’t need to worry about not being able to match the entire set.

Which cutleries for which use?

Many people associate cutlery with knives and honestly, you should have a nice collection of knives if you want to create a great cutlery set. The best knives to consider are Victorinox Swiss Army 7.5" Chef's Knife, J. A. HENCKELS Zwilling steak knife set, Rosewill RHKN-13002 5-Piece Ceramic Knife and Cutting Board Set and Wusthof Classic Ikon 10 Piece Knife Block Set.

Dinner sets make for excellent cutlery because you have everything in one place. It is, thus, easier to manage an entire set. Some of the best dining sets in Canada are Galleyware Company 20 Piece Anchor Plus Storage Tray Flatware Set, IMAGINE 20-piece Stainless Steel Flatware set, Cake Pedestal, David Shaw Silverware Splendide Patras 20 Piece Flatware Set and Farberware Allspice Sand 20 Piece Flatware Set.

Forks also form an important part of cutlery and there are times when you only need to buy forks to complete your collection. Some of the products worth looking at are Gourmet Settings Windermere Dinner Fork, Swissmar Cheese Knife Set with Magnetic Block, DIXIE FH207 Fork, Fuel Snap Flatware and Gourmet Settings Savannah Dinner Fork.