America's Test Kitchen recommends the Victorinox knives for every skill level and budget, including professional chefs. It's just a damn good knife, and it happens to be cheap at around $50. Go with this rather than Ikea if it's in the budget :)

Fantastic starter knives, otherwise spend 150-200 on a Japanese gato/r/chefsknives has good recommendations.

The mass market knife block sets are actually worse than the victronix and cost more.

My first Sous Chef gave me his Victorinox from when he went to Culinary Institute of America. I still use it even though I've since bought a Wusthof. I like how it is thinner, it holds an edge well and has good ergonomics.

> start out with a $20 IKEA knife and a stone to keep it sharp. You'll get better long term results than you would with an expensive knife on its own any day of the week.

This is very, very smart advice.

The only thing I'd add is to learn proper knife techniques: how to hold food keeping your fingers away from the blade. Never take risks with a well sharped knife.

Cut with the claw or you'll be cutting with a claw.

Tuck your fingertips under and rest the flat of the blade against your knuckles. It should not be possible to reach the tip of a finger with your blade. Check some youtube videos and practice. Establishing good knife skills is not only good for safety but makes cooking faster and more pleasant.

The claw is such a simple but effective technique that I am sometimes surprised it's not more widespread. I can't remember the amount of times I saw people using knives looking like they are about to cut themselves with the next movement of the knife.

"Never take risks with a well sharped knife."

I developed the habit of cutting myself once, with every new knive I buy. (Now I am hesitant to buy a new one)

So far I was quite lucky, but you can easily loose a finger or worse, if you do not pay attention.

This is exactly what I have. An IKEA knife I’ve had for the past 20 years or so. I’ve always kept it sharp, but the game changer in the past few months was reading advice to sharpen it every time I use it. I do that now, just a little bit, and over time what you end up with is an insanely sharp knife. I also have a sharpening steel, like the kind used in commercial kitchens, but I much prefer the stone.

Agreed, I've had both the ceramic and diamond "steels" handy for the last decade, and basically every time I use a knife I spend 30 seconds running it over one of these, and my kitchen experience is better for it. Of course, I'm the only one in my household that does this, but I use them frequently enough that generally it keeps them pretty good.

Was recently prepping some food at someone else's house, and they didn't even have a sharpener. It was a terrible experience, even after using the bottom of a coffee cup to help the knife out.

I bought this Global Classic Flexible Boning Knife a few years ago, this one knife changed my whole game. I like to buy Chicken thighs, take the center bone out, keep the bones for some amazing stock and render the skin into schmaltz. It's a process that used to take quite a long time, but this knife has made it super quick.

Adjacent: Microplane (the beans) graters and zesters are a revelation after using generic box graters for decades. Worth every penny.

Is there a particular whetstone grit you would recommend?

Get a sharpton 1000grit. The cheap king stones are really soft and are kind of a pain to learn on.

I actually have a cheap King stone (the 1000/6000 combo), but parent is right.

1000 grit gets you more than sharp enough for daily use while still being coarse enough to fix up a well-maintained knife in about 20-30 strokes per side.

Higher grits make the knives too sharp, to the point where they're dangerous to handle, especially if you're cooking drunk/tired. (That's not to say I never use it, but it's always for fun at that point).