Savernake Knives review: Are they worth the cost?

If you’re looking for a new top quality kitchen knife and have been doing your research online, it’s almost certain you will have come across Savernake Knives. What makes Savernake Knives so special? Are Savernake Knives worth the cost? How do these kitchen knives stack up against the competition? We’ve done our research and put together this review of Savernake Knives.

What materials are Savernake Knives made from?

Savernake Knives claim to use only the finest materials, but does this claim hold true or can these materials be acquired cheaper elsewhere?

The blades of a Savernake Knife will typically be forged from Swedish Sandvik 14c28n steel. This is a high quality steel specifically designed for making blades, with a hardness of just over 60 HRC. It’s a stainless steel that will cope well with exposure to water. It’s also a fairly new steel that you won’t see a great deal of other knifemakers using.

There are trade-offs with knife making steel. Harder steel often means initially sharper, but difficult to sharpen and less durable. This means that the definition of ‘good steel’ is at least in part down to the smith’s personal taste. Savernake Knives are placed somewhere in between softer but durable German knives and the Japanese hard, sharp and brittle knives on the other end of the spectrum. What is true about Savernake Knives is that the Cutlery and Allied Trades Research Association (CATRA) ran a standardised test on the sharpness and edge retention of the blades. Savernake Knives were judged to be in the top 2.5% of knives tested, so they’ve hit a bit of a sweet spot. Hard enough to retain a sharp edge, not so sharp that they become difficult to sharpen and maintain.

What about the cost of materials? Well, the truth is, the cost of a Savernake Knife set isn’t based solely on the choice of the materials. A quick search on Amazon will bring up plenty of kitchen knives that use this steel at a much cheaper cost. So what are you paying for then? We think Savernake Knives are genuinely special, so continue reading to find out why.

How are Savernake Knives forged?

Savernake kitchen knives are forged by a small team that work out of an old saw mill on the edge of Savernake Forest in Wiltshire. The team use a combination of cutting edge aerospace technology and century old hand forging techniques. They bring together ancient knifesmithing skills and precise modern engineering. Every knife takes 50+ hours to make, and is hand finished and quality assured by an expert knifesmith. This means that when your knife arrives at your door, it has been meticulously crafted. The quality really is evident right away.

Savernake Knives state on their website that their choice of steel is grounded in Sweden’s commitment to ‘remain at the forefront of technological and innovative development in a transformation to a sustainable society’. It’s important to feel like the materials in a high end knife have been carefully considered and ethically sourced, so this is a nice touch.

What makes Savernake Knives so special?

So Savernake Knives are painstakingly made out of high-quality steel, they place in the top 2.5% of knives tested for sharpness and blade retention, they’re made from ethically sourced materials. This is all good… great, even. But at Kitchen Katanas we think there’s even more to Savernake Knives than this. 

What truly makes a Savernake Knife so special is the fact that they are custom forged for each individual chef. There are over 44,380 possible configurations for building your new kitchen knife on the Savernake Website. But it goes deeper than choosing shape and materials. At the start of the forging process, your name is engraved into the tang of the blade. From that point onwards, the Savernake team refer to your knife by your name. There’s something deeply personal about that. From the fall of the first hammer blow, your knife is forged to fit your hand. That’s just awesome!

Are Savernake Knives good value for money?

The hard truth is, Savernake Knives are definitely expensive. There are plenty of great knives out there that cost half the price, even a quarter of the price. Savernake Knives are an unjustifiably expensive choice for someone that doesn’t love to cook, or love the feel of a good kitchen knife. 

That being said, at Kitchen Katanas, we do love to cook, and we value the feeling that comes from cooking with a quality tool like this. A Savernake Knife is the kind of knife you buy once, you buy with your heart and you love for a lifetime. If that sounds like what you’re looking for, then in our opinion, there’s no better choice