Shun Classic 7-inch Dual Density Serrated Bread/Utility Knife

I wanted a utility knife for cutting soft vegetables, and for cutting breads from normal sized loaves and from baguettes. This knife works very well for the purpose. Now, instead of using a paring knife, a chef knife, and an un-serrated 6" utility knife, I use this knife as my utility knife.First, it's expensive. You can get an offset serrated knife from F. Dick for twenty bucks. It'll probably work just as well. This is more an "enthusiasts" tool for people who seldom buy kitchen equipment but like to have items of very good quality and appearance.This was my first foray into the world of hard Japanese VG steels. Generally, I prefer the European steels that are softer, but easier to sharpen and maintain. My thinking for accepting VG here is that serrated knives are not generally sharpened during their service lives. I thought that having hard steel would be good in a situation like that. Am I right? I dunno. Maybe. I have friends with 30 year old Wusthoff serrated knives that are doing just fine, and they are made of softer steel, and have never been sharpened.This is also my first Japanese style D-shaped handle. It is much more comfortable than I expected. Feel and comfort of this knife is superb.It's also a beautiful knife.OVERALL: It's an excellent knife. It exceeds my expectations. I'm very pleased with my decision to try this knife. I've been using it daily for a few months. I like the versatility and the convenient size. My chef knife and paring knife are indispensable but this is my most frequently used knife now. It is naturally the knife I pick up first, and only pick another knife if I need it's special strength and utility.WHAT I DON'T LIKE THIS ABOUT THE KNIFE: It is not suitable for hard vegetables like big baking potatoes and butternut squash. Use your chef knife for that. Those are applications where non-serrated good ol' utility knife works well too. To work well, this knife requires a back and forth sawing motion, or forward slicing motion, or backward slicing motion. Don't use it around bones either. You want that blade to stay sharp and well aligned.WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THE KNIFE: For everything else, it's great, and I especially like it for almost every other kind of vegetable, like salad vegetables, tomatoes, onions, zucchini, cabbage, lettuce, string beans, broccoli, etc. Anything that isn't too hard. It is also great for slicing bread and meats. You can get good very thin slices with this blade. The long waves of serration help to get the cut started. The short serrations are good for the actual cut. It really does fit well into the three-knife set of paring, utility, and chef. I use it more often than my chef knife. Until buying this knife, I used the chef knife most.THE LEARNING CURVE: You can't just pick this knife up and start getting the most out of it right away. It takes some practice to learn how to best slice with it. As an example, I initially was not cutting all the way through tomatoes and pieces of meat, and was leaving a small bit of connecting tissue between slices. That required a bit of adjustment to my technique. Its not a flaw in the knife. It's just a transition from what I was used to.NOTES: Shun doesn't seem overly committed to this design. I see it as a Williams-Sonoma catalog item, but I did not see this knife or anything like it in the Shun online catalog. Maybe they're just trying it out to see how well it sells. Its unusual design does make it a distinctive conversation starter. The knife is very easy to clean. I can get thinner slices of tomato and onion using my well sharpened chef knife, and do it more easily. I think that's because my chef knife is kept very sharp, and because it has a double bevel blade for for straight slicing. This knife is smaller and handier than the chef knife. The knife has a single bevel blade, which suggests that it's intended for slicing through relatively small things, not larger things where the blade would drift to the left or right as it slices.

The shipping was super fast on this. My wife loves the way it slices through bread. The unique blade edge must make a difference as she says this is the best bread knife ever.

I've got a couple other Shun knives and after some issues cutting some homemade bread with old cheapie big box store knives, I went with the best.

While I'm not a highly experienced cook with an enormous repertoire, I've been slowly growing more confident at experimenting with new ingredients and techniques. This knife has greatly facilitated my capacity to do this.Like any serrated knife, there are some uses for which it's not well suited. In fact, when I first purchased it, I wasn't entirely sure what role it should play in my kitchen. In the years since, I've found that it fills an important gap between my chef's knife, boning knife and serrated utility knife.With its generous length and finely pointed beak, it's very efficient for medium and large ingredients that need to be sliced, delicate ones especially. This knife is relatively light yet nicely balanced, permitting the user to wield it confidently across a range of tasks. Most amazing of all, it almost feels sharper now than it did when I first pulled it from the box. I imagine this is because I've grown used to handling it. Nevertheless, for a serrated knife to maintain its performance for such a long time is unprecedented in my experience, which includes Henckels and Wusthof.In any case, if you're looking for a larger, versatile, and durable knife with great performance, consider this one.