Funny

[Mark76]

Since I started sharpening for a restaurant in the town I live in I sort-of got involved in the culinary scene around here. And it has become my personal mission 😉 to ban serrated steak knives. I hate it to tear apart steaks with a serrated knife and I always carry my own Laguiole knife when I go to a restaurant.

But steak knives are not useless. They work very well on… pizza’s.

And now I’ve achieved my first success. The restaurant I used to sharpen for had already exchanged their serrated steak knives for Opinel knives. But now they’ve given (well, sold) their superfluous serrated knives to a pizza restaurant nearby.

Mission accomplished. :cheer: :cheer: (Well, for these restaurants. 100 more to go 😉 .)

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Josh]

lol that’s great mark!! thanks for sharing!

It would seem to me that the serrated knives are great for the restaurant customer scene. The reason for this is because they will rip and tear FAR longer than a plain edge knife will after repeatedly slamming into the porcelain plaits or whatever the backing is. They need much less frequent sharpening in this scenario… do you agree? I was amazed eating in a restaurant the other month how dull the steak knives were but they would still make it through the meat! lol

[Steven N. Bolin]

I work at Perla’s Seafood & Oyster Bar here in Austin, TX. Might’ve seen us on Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, no big deal B) Haha. I actually have become quite involved with the cutlery we deal with from day-to-day as well. The only plates we throw a serrated knife on are the Iceberg Wedge Salad (literally 1/4 head of iceberg lettuce the guest then has to tear down) and steaks. That’s it. And the serrations aren’t even sharp, it’s the teeth that do all the work as one tooth bites behind the other with every slice.

My opinion is serrated blades are kinda a one-trick pony… And, it’s a trick a plain edge blade can do just as well if it has the proper edge 🙂

[Mark76]

Thanks for your responses, guys! This is just a funny (and now rewarding) personal folly of mine.

Of course serrated knives require much less maintenance in the sense that they never get sharpened. But I also think it’s a psychological thing: people just seem to think that steaks require serrated knives. (That’s why they are called steak knives 😉 .) Even at home I use serrated knives for dinner (and I think nearly every restaurant does this), although the serrations are not nearly as deep as on “steak knives”.

There is a tendency over here (Netherlands) for restaurants to provide their guests with better knives. Quite a few restaurants already provide their guests with non-serrated knives nowadays. Sometimes they’re Laguiole knives (but these are quite expensive when you’re a restaurant that needs to buy 100 or more of them) and more often Opinel knives.

Serrated knives in general are still useful when you’ve got to cut something that contains long strings of fiber. Whether it be a carpet, a pizza or… iceberg lettuce (I hope this is the proper term for it). Good idea, Steven!

And by the way, I love seafood and particularly oysters. For some reason there hardly exist any restaurants over here that specialize in that. The last time I ate that in a restaurant was in Boston. So if I ever go to Texas, I’ll drop you a mail Steven!

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

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