Product Review: Robert Welch Signature Knives

 

Sharon:

Many moons ago, my dear husband Dan made what conceivably could have been a fatal mistake.  Having grown up in a household where “practical” gifts – aka anything related to household chores – was unacceptable, imagine my surprise when I opened my birthday present from him and it was a set of knives.  I was torn.  Should I use them to stab him, or should I gratefully admit that I had secretly been longing for better knives for some time.  I chose the latter when I saw that he had indeed purchased good knives – Wusthof knives.  These knives made cooking an even more pleasurable activity and I’ve put them to good use ever since. 

Fast forward, to the present.  A colleague hooked Barb and I up to test run a line of high-quality knives, cooking utensils and kitchen accessories by UK designer Robert Welch Designs.  His lines were recently introduced in the United States, and can be found, among other locations, at Crate & Barrel.

Wow.  Sorry Wusthof.  My heart now belongs to Robert Welch.  His knives actually give me goose bumps.  Not only are they incredibly sharp (sort of a must-have for a good knife), but they fit so beautifully in my hand and the weighting between blade and handle is superb.  And, they’re beautiful!  The past few days, I’ve been choosing things to cook that require a lot of knife work, just so I can use these knives. 

I test drove three different knives from Welch’s Signature line – a vegetable paring knife, an 8” chef’s knife, and a 5 1/2” Santoku.  The latter sliced so effortlessly through a cantaloupe, my friend Sylvia actually gasped.  She used the paring knife to cut up veggies for kabobs the other night and kept commenting on how wonderful the knife felt in her hand.   

The Robert Welch Signature line not only features a broad range of hand-crafted knives, but also utensils that are as beautiful as they are functional, and they include those wonderfully lipped ends on the comfortably round handles for storage/display on kitchen utensil rails.  Even his salt and pepper grinders are aesthetically pleasing – almost like setting a piece of contemporary art on your counter.

Barb:

I couldn’t agree more. I too have a knife set of Wusthofs, but after putting these Robert Welch Signature knives in my hand, I packed up those old knives to give to my daughter when she moves into her apartment. The Robert Welch Signature knives felt heavier in my hand, but not too heavy to cause arm fatigue. I’ve been using a Wusthof Santoku knife for a few months but the Welch one sliced effortlessly through everything I cut. The paring knife was a dream to use…my old Cutco had given up the ghost long ago. Wow, so nice to use great knives.