Calaphalon, Chicago Cutlery or Henckels

OOH OOH OOH finally a subject I know something about!! Or at least can fake it. I was looking for a good set of knives about a year ago, and have a friend who's a sous chef at a big-time hotel who knows a LOT about knives. Talked to him, he said that if you are looking for a serious professional set of knives then you really need to either go with Wusthof-Trident (also known as Wusthof Dreizack) or Global. There is a very major and noticeable difference in both sharpness and overall quality between these two and the brands that you mentioned. HOWEVER, there's also a very noticeable <i>price difference</i> between them as well. Instead of getting a complete set, I went to a local kitchen/cutlery store here in San Diego and spent several hours trying them all out, seeing how they felt and how they handled for me personally. I ended up getting all open stock, a mix of both Global and Wusthof-Trident, depending on which felt best. Overall I spent probably somewhere on the order of about $900 for the set of 7 after my friend's discounts, not sure what your budget is but if you'd like to know more then let me know, I know more about decent knives than most people should. It's probably squeezing out some important information in my brain, like "put stand down before leaning bike over" or something.

V