Buy Chef's Choice Pronto Santoku/Asian Manual Knife Sharpener

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List Price: $55.00
Sale Price: $39.99
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I am a personal chef and caterer and use my Asian Shun Kershaw knife 6 to 8 hours a day, 6 days a week. Of course that will dull any blade and so far the only good solution was for me to send my knife back to the factory every 6 months to be re-sharpened. Losing the use of my knife for 3 weeks was never fun; I do have a replacement, a Victorinox Fibrox chef knife, but it is not quite same.

So I tried a sharpening stone, the kershaw electric sharpener (mistake, I had to send the knife to the factory right after using that), the Wusthof santoku sharpener (not effective enough), a diamond coated steel, built a wood stand for my sharpening stone at the required 15 degree angle (that worked pretty well). And then I found this.

I have used it and it is wonderful! The blade is back to factory sharpness and it is very easy to use. Plus I can use it to hone the knife everyday before using it to maintain the edge. My search is over! Thank you Chef's choice. To my knowledge it is the only easy to use sharpener on the market that works for Asian knifes.

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I have never had any luck with manual or electric knife sharpeners and was hesitant to try and sharpen my expensive knives on one only to have the edge completely trashed, which has happened. However I have been without the use my santoku for too long and decided to purchase this item. I didn't expect much, however it was recommended by cook's illustrated so I figured I would give it a try. I got it today and tried it and was amazed at how it put a razor sharp edge on all my dull knives. I highly recommend this product to anyone with Asian style knives that need a good sharpening.

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I own a nice set of Global knives and I got tired of using their "waterstone" to sharpen them (nice job but tedious). I've tried both this product by Chef's Choice and the MinoSharp (also available from Amazon). I found the MinoSharp to be far superior. Both products are easy to hold and use. They have, however, very different methods of sharpening. Chef's Choice uses two abrasive bars in a V shape configuration. MinoSharp uses small round sharpening stones over which the knife glides (one for course, the other for fine sharpening). With Chef's Choice you need to use a lot of pressure to sharpen the knife and it does not sharpen as well as the MinoSharp, which requests you to use light pressure. The difference in pressure also makes me feel that a lot of steel is being taken with the Chef's Choice. I've read the testimonials of the "5's" but their results have not been mine. If you do select the MinoSharp my only caveat would be that you need to be very careful once you sharpen your knife--it really does come out razor sharp.

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The fact that there are actual wheels on this unit was impressive. Wheels are less harsh on the actual blade and refine it more. Cheaper Chef's Choice sharpeners use a static sharpening edge. If you own Japanese knives, you need to sharpen with the correct angle. I cannot stress that enough. I own a $200 dollar Shun Ken Onion knife and I cook every day. It's not an option to send it off for sharpening to Shun, although it's free, I'd be without my baby for 2-4 weeks. I was hesitant to use a device on my beautiful knife, but it became factory sharp in 5 swipes. I took it to my buddy, a professional sharpener, (he still sharpens my German blades) and asked what he thought. He was impressed and a tad sad I wouldn't be bringing my shun in anymore. VERY VERY nice product.

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I used to run a restaurant. I've spent years in kitchens of others and have always used traditional hand knife sharpening. First I used Arkansas stone the later Japanese water stones. With those it's possible to put a scary sharp edge on a knife. Does the Chef's Choice sharpener do that kind of job? No. But it does put a decent working edge on a knife, much sharper than most home cooks are used to. That's important for Japanese style knives as their finer edge is more quickly dulled than western knives. It's simple to use, takes little time (unless your knives are extremely dull to start with) and reasonably priced. After putting an initial edge on a knife, it's possible to keep the blade sharp with little effort and without the need to learn esoteric knife sharpening skills. Bottom line, it sharpens knives easily, quickly and adequately.