The Mercer Culinary Knife Buying Guide | Find the Cutlery You Need

Jun 16, 2021
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When it comes to your commercial kitchen, you need your food prep workflow to be as efficient as possible. That's why using the right knife is essential.

Each style of knife is designed to excel at different tasks - be it chopping, slicing, or dicing - and so can reduce prep time and improve results when used correctly.

We've broken down some of the most popular knife styles from the Mercer Millennia and Genesis collections to help you find the perfect piece of cutlery.

Mercer Millennia

When you choose Mercer Millennia, you are choosing a one-piece, high-carbon, stain-free Japanese blade that offers superior performance, easy edge maintenance, and rapid sharpening.

Each knife has an ergonomic handle (made from comfortable Santoprene and and durable polypropylene) with a non-slip surface and textured finger points that are easy to grip.

Additionally, every piece in this collection has a protective finger guard and comes with a limited lifetime warranty.

Mercer Genesis

Mercer Genesis knives combine modern technology and finely crafted, precision-forged steel.

The blade will resist rust, corrosion, and discoloration, and the tapered edge allows for added stability, easy honing, long-lasting sharpness, and increased efficiency.

These pieces have an ergonomic Santroprene handle for superior comfort and a non-slip grip even when wet. This collection also includes a limited lifetime warranty.

Chef's Knife

A chef's knife is the number one choice for most basic kitchen tasks - it can do just about anything, including slicing, dicing, chopping and more. It has a long, wide blade that is easy to handle.

However, because this knife is designed to do so much, more specialized tasks like deboning or carving meat, slicing bread, or peeling an apple work are easier/more efficient with other knives on this list.

Utility Knife

A utility knife is a smaller version of a chef's knife, and just about as versatile. Since it is slightly smaller, it is more precise. Popular utility knife uses include trimming, dicing, chopping, and more.

Paring Knife

A paring knife is usually seen as a mini chef's knife. Because of it's smaller size, it's more maneuvarable, making it more appropriate for precise tasks like dicing small vegetables, peeling, and trimming.

Paring knives come with either a smooth edge or a wavy edge - the wavy edge has teeth that can easily penetrate the tough outer crust or skin of the food while also protecting the inner layer from tears.

Santoku Knife

If you want a go-to knife for all of your precision slicing, dicing, and mincing, look no further! The Santoku knife is similar to a chef's knife, but with a thinner blade, so it's easier to make the up-and-down chopping motion. The Genesis Santoku has a granton edge that creates air pockets between the blade and the food, which reduces sticking and tearing.

Genesis 7" Santoku Knife

Boning Knife

Boning knives are used to remove bones or skin from cuts of meat.

A straight stiff blade is the optimal choice for deboning thick meats like beef, while curved flexible blades work better on thin meats like fish and poultry.

Nakiri Knife

Most commonly used on vegetables, the Nakiri knife is shaped like a small cleaver. This design reduces the need for rocking and sawing, and you can use the flat blade to move your veggies from the cutting board to the skillet!

Bread Knife

The serrated edges of bread knives are designed to cut through harder surfaces like bread crusts without squashing the more delicate inner layers.

Carving Knife

A chef's knife can be unwieldy when used on large cooked meats. Get the even slices you need by using a carving knife. Keep in mind that if you need very thin slices, a slicing knife would be more appropriate.

Genesis 10" Carving Knife

Slicing Knife

A slicer has similar functionality to that of a carving knife, but can make even thinner slices.

The Millennia slicer knife has a granton edge to create small air spaces between your product and the knife. This reduces the chance of your product ripping and tearing as you cut it.