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I'm a big fan of using the right tool for the job in the kitchen. No surprise there, yet I frequently get that FOMO-y feeling that something new or different might be better than what I own.
Several months ago, I looked at a set of carbon steel knives made in Oregon by Steelport. They were beautiful, with their blade patina and sculptural wood handles. I wondered if I was keeping up with the Portlandians, and particularly their bread knives, when I compared it with my inexpensive but high-performing Mercer Culinary Millenia.
The Mercer is America’s Test Kitchen's top pick for serrated bread knives, with its snub nose and pointy teeth. The black plastic handle is grippy, chunky, and functional. It immediately replaced its predecessor, a nostalgia-inducing but low-performing stainless number that I got in Paris for cheap because it had a crack in the handle.
Looking at the Steelport 10-inch Bread Knife at my favorite trade show, I daydreamed about how it might work even better than the $25 Mercer. At an astounding 450 bucks … brief pause here as the writer pulls out a calculator and divides 450 by 25 … could it be 18 times better? I will not let that idea waggle around. It was not 18 times better, but I'll let you wonder for a moment if it was maybe a couple.
Leaving price out of it for a moment, high-end bread knives of this quality have a lot going for them. The Steelport is quite handsome, with a burl-wood handle and gray blade that stand out from the less-interesting knives in your block. At 65 on the Rockwell C scale, it is a particularly hard blade. That level of hardness can make the steel a little brittle but allows the blade to be narrow, extremely sharp, and able to hold a ripping edge for a long time. The handle is a little more "multi-planar" than most knives, and it is quite comfortable. The top of the blade, known as the spine, is rounded, something you'll appreciate if you're using it for a long time, as it can keep blisters from forming on your index finger; more knives should do this. There's also a finger nook at the blade heel, which can make you feel more slotted into your grip. One difference between the two knives is that the Mercer has pointier serrations compared to the Steelport's more rounded tips; a choppy ocean versus rolling seas, if you will.
I thought this might make a noticeable difference so I started cutting stuff up, buying and making loaves, then tearing into them with one knife then the other over the course of a couple of months. Both of them went through sandwich bread with the greatest of ease, with zero damage to the bread itself, the opposite of the manhandling you'd give the loaf if you went at it with a dull chef's knife. I was needlessly concerned when cutting vertically into delicate croissants and even more so when I cut horizontally through the crispy, laminated goodness like you would do to toast it or to make a croissan'wich, but both blades just sliced through, leaving clean edges and neat corners in their wakes.
Unsurprisingly, they both slipped a little on the thick crust when turning a half boule into slices, but rotating the knife to get it roughly perpendicular to the curved surface for half a stroke until it bit, then going vertical, fixed that easily. The two blades felt so evenly matched that I’d occasionally slice into a bagel or some other loaf with one knife, get distracted for a second, and have no clue which one I had used to make the cut.
One day I had crystallized honey trapped inside a plastic bear dispenser and used the knives to saw the beast in half. Knife abuse is bad, but it's certainly easier with an inexpensive knife.
OK—time for some awkwardness! Is a fancy and expensive bread knife 18 times as good as the top-ranked, 25-dollar competition? Nope. Is it even twice as good? Again, alas, no. I will say more positive stuff on the the slightly more touchy-feely side, however. The Steelport is well designed and handsome, and it feels very good to draw back and forth. The gentle curve of the blade might even give dorks like me an occasional samurai-sword frisson. For those reasons, or at least some of them, you might reach for it a bit more often, or just enjoy staring at it.
One particularly appealing service is Steelport’s free sharpening for life, which is done by mailing your blades to them. It’s a nice perk a few other manufacturers, including Cutco, offer. (Side note: Say what you want about Cutco knives, but its $145 bread knife, inexplicably sold as a “carver,” is surprisingly excellent. Just have a knife shop lop off its pointy tip.) You can also sharpen your own serrated knife or find a shop that will do it for you.
You might feel better about yourself if you got a Mercer and donated the difference to World Central Kitchen or your local food bank. But if it gives you great pleasure to use a fancy bread knife, and you can afford the price difference, go for it. It works great and looks even better.
