Mercer Culinary M23630 Renaissance, 7-Inch Forged Fillet Knife

Nice quality knife. It is a pretty thick knife so I have some issues with wedging with onions. I have not had issues with rust as I hand wash my knives and do not put them in a dishwasher. Feels comfortable to pinch grip and with a nice blade design for rock chopping. It was pretty sharp out of the package, but I did end up touching it up with a Shapton 1000 and stropped it.

I've been using this knife for a couple years now has not lost his Edge once. And I use it anything from slicing dicing to splitting chicken. Nice and heavy in the hand. Very satisfied

I stumbled onto this while reading reviews on some Zwilling steak knives, the reviewer mentioned that these Mercer's are great, and MUCH less $$, but same forged quality and sharpness, so I tossed it in my cart WITH the Zwillings that were there. Even before it was out of the package I was impressed with the look, feel and size. Man! Is this baby great! I LOVE the size, I have small lady hands. In fact, after 2 days of using it, when the Zwilling's arrived, I didn't even open them from the shipping box and returned them! I'm going to order the 5" size as well to use for BF and guest steak knives ( regular hand size people! ). And BONUS! The handle is an exact match to my other Zwilling Pro knives that I LOVE and use every day! Next time I need a gift for someone who loves to cook as I do, I will DEFINITELY be buying them a Mercer (or 2!) The price / quality is unbeatable!

Mercer knives are made with the same steel as Wusthof, Henckels, and Messermeister, but cost a fraction of what the German-made equivalents do. They're not quite as well finished as their German counterparts, but that can actually be an advantage- that mirror polish on the Wusthof is beautiful to behold, but any knife that gets any use at all will inevitably get scratches on the blade and handle. The more polished the knife, the more the scratches stand out. The Mercer knife takes a few design cues from Messermeister, namely the thinner blade, the abbreviated bolster web, and the rounded spine. Back in the 1980s, when Wusthof was king, the thinking was that a heavier blade was better, that somehow the weight of the blade would "do the work for you"- a silly proposition. A thinner blade goes through the food easier and without as much wedging, and the lighter weight is much less fatiguing. The only time a heavier blade is better is if it isn't sharp, and you have to force it through the food with brute strength. Sharpen your knives and you won't have to worry about it. For a long time, a fully webbed bolster was considered a sign of quality. The reason being that it identified the knife as being forged, rather than stamped. The web itself (which is what most people mean when they say "bolster") serves no purpose, and actually gets in the way of sharpening the knife properly, and makes it far more difficult than it needs to be. Messermeister and Mercer have done away with the webbed bolster, so there's nothing getting in the way of keeping your knife sharp. Wusthof and Zwilling/Henckels have nice, crisp, squared-off edges on the spine of the knife. It looks pretty, but when holding the knife properly, the square edges dig into the skin where your index finger meets the palm of your hand. Messermeister and Mercer round off those sharp corners, making it more comfortable to hold correctly, especially when using it for any length of time. I personally don't like the Mercer 10" Chef knife, and the 8" (which is considered the norm for household use) is just not quite enough knife. In my experience, the 9" Chef Knife is the sweet spot, and the one I recommend. This is the knife that will handle 80% of your cutting needs. After that, an inexpensive serrated bread knife and paring knife (serrated knives aren't worth sharpening, once it gets dull, it's best just to get a new one, so a reasonably cheap stamped bread knife is the way to go) will round out the kit. After that, if you're going to be fabricating proteins and/or boning out poultry, a 5.5" boning knife will come in handy.

After having and using this knife for a few weeks, I have to say, function-wise, the 8" Chef knife is excellent. I see why so many recommend this knife. It came pretty sharp "out of the box", though I would recommend touching it up if you have the tools (I touched it up using a Spyderco Sharpmaker, I have not taken this to my waterstone yet). It is well balanced, and makes quick work of basically everything I throw at it. Unfortunately, my concern is the QC of the steel. I see that there are noticeable number of other reviews that talk about blemishes, tarnishing, and rusting. It is obvious that the knife seems to be properly made in Taiwan, but the raw steel doesnt seem like its QC is up to what I am used to with Taiwanese made products. I have a feeling that they get their "German steel" (just a German formulation of steel, it doesnt mean that it's made in Germany), from some random factory in "China", like the countless other cheapo Chinese made knives you can find. It took only a few days before I had some noticeable blemishing along the blade for me. I do actually take good care of my knives, as I only hand-wash with dish soap and a soft sponge. I also towel dry my knives immediately after washing. It looks like the batch of steel used in my knife was a little off from what it was supposed to be. In the end, the blemishing is not major, as it doesnt seem to be so bad that it might threaten the structural integrity of the blade, it seems to be just cosmetic. Its more disappointing more than anything that the "stainless" steel is not actually "stainless". It looks like, if you get this knife, functionally, you can expect it to perform extremely well, however, you roll the dice on if it will have minor cosmetic issues/rusting.

I've got some fairly expensive Shun and Wusthoff and Zwilling chef's knives, but for single-serving meals this 6 inch knife is by far my favorite. When just doing a quick chop of a single veggie, it fits perfectly well on my smaller cutting boards and offers a little bit more control than a larger knife. The blade doesn't feel flimsy or too heavy (like most of my Wusthoffs). The grip is very comfortable, not too heavy, not too light, not bulky at all, and not square-edged and uncomfortable (like some of my Zwillings). Out of the package, it's razor sharp and after several months of use, all it needs is a quick pass on a honing rod to restore that. It honestly makes me regret spending so much on some of my other knives. I could have several more of these Mercer's for what I spent on those.

Perfect, esp. for the price; much better than similarly-priced Henckels/similar and easily as good as high-end Zwilling or Wusthof Classics costing many times more. The only thing that makes those more expensive knives worth it might be more premium steel treatments like Friodur but these Mercer are also forged w the same high-quality German stainless 1.4116 steel as they and most of the premium German etc. knives that cost hundreds more. But, in this price range these Mercer fit and finish blow away the similar-priced German ones, and it’s not even close. These have beautifully polished/rounded grip edges and blade spines with every rivet smooth and perfectly flush, while its Henckles/Zwilling price-mates are put together like a cheap, sloppy mess and feel like it too. This may be my beater for daily use while my mains are a very nice Takayuchi & a nice Shun, but this is a true pro knife for half the price and feels like it too, easily a lifer and heirloom quality blade. Also got the paring knife and love it, fits the Wusthof Classic bill at 1/4 the price. This line from Mercer totally changes (fixes) what a great classic knife should cost. Will be buying more from this series for sure.

Just recived this today and got to try it out. Bought it to start replacing worn out knives in an old Farberware set. This 8" chefs knife was reviewed on youtube as being comparable to a $120 German knife. Being I formerly cooked professionally and wanted a great knife on a budget I decided to give it a try. Out of the package it seems quite sharp to me. The knife feels like it has good weight and is balanced like a higher end knife would be. I decided to wash it and chop up a salad for dinner. It did well gliding through all the vegies and especially tomatoes. It cut into the tomatoes with great ease, not smashing them at all. The only negitive is the blade has a taller profile and does not fit in the space in the block that came with my old set in any place of the old knife block but the cleaver's spot. You can see in the second photo where I have the tired old Farberware chef's knife next to the Mercer how much more substantial it is overall. So now I kinda need a better knife block to store this and the other new knives I plan to buy. Some will be Mercer for sure. 8/6/20 I am still using the knife and several other Mercer knives. They still are very sharp and to maintain that I had to purchase a sharpener that can do a 15° edge as that is what is put on at the factory. This is pretty much typical for Asian knives. I found it here on Amazon. I actually got one that can do 20° for most American and European knives and 15° as well. My advice is use these with a wood or Polly cutting board. Hard wash them as the dishwasher can dull or Nick knives. Sharpen when you can't cut tomatoes well with a good sharpener.