The Best Knife Sets to Make Cooking Anything But Dull

Material Kitchen’s Trio of Knives ($155) is one of our favorite sets because it’s perfect for the novice cook and experienced chef alike. The Japanese steel used in making these knives is cryogenically tempered, a process involving heating and cooling the metal to extreme temperatures in order to bring its molecules to “cryogenic stillness,” which improves the steel’s longevity. The set includes an 8-inch knife for general use, a 6-inch serrated knife that’s great for cutting bread (and whose shorter length feels much more manageable than longer serrated knives), and a 4-inch paring knife. Material Kitchen highly recommends caring for your knives in order to ensure their lifetime use and sells a knife sharpener ($15) and a magnetic knife stand ($90) that’s quite stylish and can hold up to eight knives if you decide to add more to your collection.

If you Google “Knife Capital of the World,” you probably won’t get one definitive answer – but we can assure you that one option will be Thiers, France, which is where Made In’s knives are crafted. Made In’s Knife Set ($329) is what the brand calls a complete set and includes a chef knife, paring knife, bread knife, and Nakiri knife, which features a blunt-nosed blade that’s optimized for preparatory chopping requiring speed and precision. These knives are full tang, meaning that their steel extends the full length of the knife, from tip to handle, and fully forged, meaning each knife is made from a single rod of stainless steel as opposed to being welded together from different bits and pieces of metal. Our favorite thing about these knives is that they come in a bright, cherry red, making them not just a functional addition to your kitchen, but an aesthetically pleasing one as well.

If the typical black or neutral knife set palette isn’t doing it for you, check out the color offerings from Our Place. The brand’s Knife Trio ($145) comes in eight different colors (we love the lush berry pink and vibrant electric blue) and includes a chef, paring, and serrated knife to cover all your cooking basics. Our Place’s proprietary and very unique grooved handle is really what sets these apart from other knife sets. If your main concern is comfort and you plan on using your knives for quite a bit of repetitive work, we couldn’t recommend a better tool for the job—a knife that will not only feel secure in your hand, but will make chopping and dicing a breeze without risking any calluses or hand cramps. Why not go ahead and make it a bundle with Our Place’s Fully Prepped Bundle ($230)?

Did you know that your favorite apron brand also sells knife sets? Hedley & Bennett’s Chef’s Knife Set ($195) is just as stylish and high quality as the company’s other kitchen accessories. Hedley & Bennett knives are used by several top chefs and thousands of restaurants across the country, so you know they’re good if they can withstand the heat in a professional kitchen. They’re ergonomically designed and are 20% lighter than a traditional German chef’s knife. Plus, Hedley & Bennett offers a lifetime guarantee to make sure you’re never left without your most important cooking tools.

Just because we’re suckers for a 1950s kitchen countertop, we’ve included the Smeg 7-Piece Knife Block Set ($500). You’ll get an assortment of vegetable, utility, meat, santoku (good for precision cutting), bread and chef's knives made from German stainless steel, all of which you can store in a shining, chrome-finished black, cream, or pastel blue block. The block itself is almost more admirable than the knives and features acacia wood on the inside to keep your knives clean and an anti-slip grip on the bottom of the block. We’re getting hungry for meatloaf already.