It’s said that this knife is made from the stream of sparks and flames surrounding a resurrecting phoenix, with the 8 inch chef’s knife featuring a custom Phoenix Damascus VG10 blade, with phoenix flames trapped within the steel itself.
Use code KIARABREASTS for 15% off (this is not a joke: YouTube)
For a start, this costs even more than a Wusthof of equivalent size. So that’s very silly. Buy a knife for using to use; buy a show-off decorative piece for showing off.
The hooks on the spine are going to make a bugger to clean and crud will get caught in the gaps constantly. The pointy ends on them will also be a mild hazard to the user at all times, especially if you’re ever going to handle the knife by its spine.
The elephant in the room, though, is that unless my eyes are mistaken the surfaces of the blade are not flat. There’s a visible stairstep in it at the composite joint between the edge and the body of the blade, which appears to be raised by a couple of mm. There’s a reason kitchen knives have never been designed with fjords in them – In addition to crap getting stuck in there it will also seriously impact the slicing performance of the knife. You’re going to bonk this stairstep against whatever you cut with it, and the little nubbins on it will humpity-bump over things as you draw the knife down against the work, as well.
If it is designed how it appears, that is incredibly dumb. How awful this will be to use is kind of hard to put into words.
Judging from the promotional video the blade is flat, the step looks more like an optical illusion of the “damascus”. Nothing to object on the price, if it could seem justified for a high-quality knife, I find it excessive for a wooden cutting board.
Just to dispel the illusion re: price for good, see my other comment here. Similar knives to this without the branding frippery (but still with the decorative pattern welded blade made of the same material) are worth about $70, retail.
This is undoubtedly a novelty piece, and not a high quality knife.
That’s not to say “low quality” knives are necessarily useless. Many millions of people successfully cut food in their kitchens every day with dollar store level cutlery that would make any professional chef eat his toque before touching any of them. But that doesn’t excuse this one costing $280, or having dumb design decisions baked right into it…
Oh but I agree that the price isn’t right, even factoring in the ‘specially made for Cover merchandise’ can’t justify a 4X increase.