One good knife

The theory behind "one good knife" is that you don't need twelve. You need something that holds an edge, a board that won't ruin that edge, and occasionally a stone to put the edge back. Everything else in a knife block is for show.

Start with the knife itself. The Chinese chef's knife with wooden handle comes in its own gift box, which is either a nice touch or an admission that it's meant to be given rather than kept, but the blade is the part that matters: 18cm of stainless steel, ground to the kind of sharp that makes you respect it before you've used it once. Compare more chef's knives.

A knife that sharp needs somewhere to land, and the Organess three-piece stainless steel board set gives it three somewhere-s, sized for everything from a single onion to a full cheese spread. Steel instead of wood or plastic means no grooves filling up with whatever you cut last. The best cutting boards.

Edges don't stay sharp on their own, and this is where the 400/1000/3000/8000 grit sharpening stone set comes in: four grits in one kit, coarse enough to rescue a neglected blade and fine enough to finish it properly. Whether you'd actually use all four depends on how far your knife has fallen. Compare more sharpening stones.

For a board that looks like it was chosen rather than just bought, there's the Joseph Joseph Folio bamboo board set, three bamboo boards that slot into a steel stand instead of leaning against the backsplash looking apologetic. The stand is doing real work here, not just styling. The best cutting boards.

Then the knives that make the case for Damascus steel, which is mostly a case about the folding pattern and the edge it allows. The 3-inch Xinzuo Damascus chef's knife is small enough to live in the drawer reserved for garlic and shallots, the jobs too fiddly for anything bigger. Compare more chef's knives.

Its larger sibling, the 8-inch Xinzuo Damascus chef's knife, is built for fish, meat and vegetables in roughly that order of difficulty, high carbon steel under the patterned finish. One knife, used properly, outlasts a whole drawer of compromises. The best chef's knives.