What You'll Find in a WÜSTHOF Kitchen
As a family-owned, premium knife company in its seventh generation, it makes sense that WÜSTHOF’s leaders have a few all-time favorite blades for food preparation and plating.
When you spend so much time around knives, the hero of the kitchen — dreaming up new collections, forging iconic blades, and even preparing dinner at the end of the day — it becomes increasingly clear which blades and styles you tend to reach for most. So, we were curious: over 208 years of expert knifemaking, which knives rise to the top for our leadership team?
Viola Wüsthof
Managing Partner
The WÜSTHOF Amici 1814 Chef’s Knife is the highlight of my kitchen every day. As a limited-edition piece of art, I look at it more than I cook with it! For food preparation, I like to use the WÜSTHOF AEON Santoku because of its brilliant geometry and beauty. I also love The Original — the WÜSTHOF Classic 8" Chef's Knife. And slicing bread with any of our 9-inch double-serrated bread knives is a pleasure, as is carving meat with our beautiful long ham slicer or carving knife.
Harald Wüsthof
Managing Partner
I have more than one favorite knife! The first is the WÜSTHOF Performer 7" Santoku. In general, I like santoku (and nakiri) knives because they are really sharp. There are two features I particularly like about the santoku knife in the Performer series. One is the honeycomb texture of the Hexagon Power Grip handle — even with wet hands, you have a good grip on the knife. The second is the Diamond-Like Carbon (DLC) coating, which is easy to clean and prevents food from sticking to the blade. I love using this knife to cut fruit into small pieces for a fruit salad. I think the way you cut something can truly enhance its flavors. And I love fruit salad. It’s seasonal, regional, and different every time! Sometimes I’ll add extra flavor with a kick of tea leaves, Grand Marnier, or Cointreau. Love it!
My other favorite WÜSTHOF knife is the Classic 9" Double-Serrated Bread Knife. (Or, as I sometimes call it, the crumb-free bread knife.) About 14, 15 years ago our head of engineering, Juergen Weber, and myself were brainstorming about the idea to have a bread knife on steroids. Besides the facts that we were co-workers we also were training for a marathon together, and needed a lot of carbs. That’s where it all started. The result was the double serration. The performance of the blade speaks for itself, and as a German I prefer cutting bread from the loaf instead of buying it pre-sliced. You can glide through even the hardest crust with that blade. Back in the days we only had 2 forged lines, and Classic was clearly my favorite.
Gwen Wüsthof
WÜSTHOF Academy Director
Hands down, the knife I always reach for is the WÜSTHOF Performer 8" Chef’s Knife. If it’s not clean, I clean it so I can use it. This knife is a newcomer to the WÜSTHOF line-up — it became my go-to knife after the first use. The honeycomb texture of the Hexagon Power Grip handle creates the perfect grip, and the Diamond-Like Carbon (DLC) coating on the blade makes slicing and dicing even more fun. Faster is not always better, but I swear you can cut faster with this knife! The first slice always makes me smile. When I am relaxed, fully present, and have a bunch of vegetables lined up to chop, working with a tool like this Performer knife turns food preparation into a meditation.
One of my most satisfying slicing moments comes in the late summer, when my garden is overflowing. I fill up my basket with the daily veggie harvest, bring everything into the kitchen, grab a WÜSTHOF paring knife, and get started on trimming and doing a little prep work. Thinking about all the things I can create with that summer bounty is as good as it gets.