Sabatier Stainless Steel 5" Utility Knife

I'm a sucker for knives of all shapes and sizes, and I love them all. However when the manufacturers claim one thing or another, I really want them to follow through. Sabatier's "Mother of Pearl 8 inch Chef Knife" claims a few things, and I'll tackle them one at a time. At the time of this review, this knife was priced at nearly $140 which puts it into the premium knives category in my opinion, and I'll treat it as such. (Faux) Mother of Pearl - Lets talk about this one first since it'll be the easiest. When most people think of "Mother of Pearl," they think of nacre - that irridescent stuff that's usually on the inside of an oyster or clam shell. As the name implies, it's also the stuff that makes up the layers of pearls. What is on the Sabatier handle is *not* mother of pearl. It's "pearlized" - as in, it's sparkly. What is it actually made of? Plexiglass. Or, by a more common name: acryllic. Some acryllic can handle even commercial dishwasher temperatures, however since Sabatier lists on the product page to handwash, I assume theirs is not one of these, which generally means their handle material is going to end up being less resillient. Not an issue if you're pretty delicate with your knives. If you're rough with them, expect some scratches and maybe even color clouding in time. (Not) High Carbon Steel - Do a search on X50CrMoV15 and you'll find that it has around 0.5% carbon content (and it's a German-based steel, not French) - which is less carbon content than your generic 440 stainless steel - the stuff that makes up some of the cheaper budget knives. To put this into perspective, this is the same steel that's in the best selling Victorinox Fibrox line - the ones that cost about a fifth of this knife. For knives that will see heavy use, the X50CrMoV15 is a relatively soft steel that will need frequent sharpening (2-3 months versus 6-8 for harder steels, very dependant on usage obviously). Honing is almost a requirement before every use. On the flip side, this knife will probably stay very shiny and be very scratch resistant. Toss your knife into the sink and leave it there after every use? This knife can take that sort of abuse. (Never trust a skinny) Chef Knife - I've uploaded a picture of this knife next to some of my other chef knives. What was immediately obvious upon opening the package was that the Sabatier was extremely thin as far as blade width was concerned. The only knife I owned that even came close to that thinness was my 6" Shun. I'd almost call this more of a large utility knife, or a non-flexible boning knife than a chef knife. The second thing that was immediately obvious was the lack of a rocking edge. The blade shape was almost as flat on the main edge as my santoku - the rounded tip being the main reason why I wouldn't call it a santoku. The flat blade shape makes this knife more suited to an up/down chopping motion than a slice. If you're a "rocker," you'll hate this knife. Here's the other kicker about the blade being so thin - there's hardly any knuckle clearance. I have what I'd consider normal sized hands - the Fibrox handles are on the edge of being too large to be comfortable. If you have giant gorilla hands, this knife will feel tiny, and you'll probably end up banging your knuckles constantly. I hated the feel of this blade in my hand and it took a while to figure out why - I was automatically adjusting my grip so that my two forward fingers were actually on the blade more than the handle in order to keep my knuckles from brushing the cutting board. When I purposefully tried to hold it normally - with a leader index finger, but the other three main fingers on the handle, the balance felt wrong, and my knuckles were hitting the board so often it felt like I was knocking on a door. Again, for gorila-handed people, the handle is very thin, similar in feel to that of a pairing knife. It felt pretty small even in my hands. Sabatier (What's in a name?) - Sabatier is a relatively generic French name which came into use before intellectual property and trademark laws existed. It used to mean high quality, fully-forged steel from Theirs, France. Now it's more of a generic term for "French knife maker", which can include anything from stamped knives or actual forged French knives. The fact that it was so hard to find the maker of these knives sent up warning bells as well. After some Googling, these particular Sabatier knives are made by the Rousselon brand (rousselon.fr), which has some really nice knives. However you'll notice that this "Mother of Pearl" line is not even mentioned on their website. Edge (Out of the box) - The edge out of the box was a good sharpness, able to cut through apples and tomatoes with little effort. The lack of weight behind the blade and lack of rocking edge made me feel that I needed to press on the head of the knife as well as the and handle in order to cut through the apple's core. The edge was fine enough that I was able to do paper-thin slices of the apple and tomato. Conclusion - Don't do it. This is a premium priced knife that has all the features of a budget knife. If you want a knife that looks nice sitting in a butcher block, but never gets used, a set of these would fit that bill nicely. However, for the price, there's so many better options out there. Many of which are probably cheaper. Recommended Knives (Note: All knives listed below were cheaper than the Sabatier at time of this review) - Victorinox Fibrox 8" Chef's Knife Zwilling J.A. Henckels Twin Four Star 8" Chef's Knife Global G-2 8" Chef's Knife Victorinox Rosewood 8" Chef's Knife Wusthof Grand Prix II 8" Chef's Knife