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I tried Ina Garten's favorite knife sharpener — and it really is the best
The Chef'sChoice 1520 Electric Sharpener creamed the competition in our testing. No wonder Ina is such a fan!
Not too long ago, my editor asked me to test the best knife sharpeners so that we could help home cooks choose one that makes their lives easier. Down the rabbit hole I went, comparing at least 100 electric and manual knife sharpeners on Amazon and beyond to come up with our testing pool. Throughout it all, I kept my North Star in the back of my mind: Obviously, I mean Ina Garten, who fortuitously had posted on Instagram about her go-to knife sharpener.
As a graduate of the French Culinary Institute, I was told and trained to use a whetstone (aka sharpening stone) as the best way to sharpen knives. But this method isn't practical for most people. It can be quite challenging to get the angle right and maintain it in the process. Electric and manual knife sharpeners do take some practice, but they're much easier to get the hang of.
Ina likes the Chef’sChoice 1520 Professional Electric Knife Sharpener so much, she included it in her preferred equipment list on the Barefoot Contessa website. So I too ordered it, along with eight other sharpeners and two honing rods. At $190, The Chef'sChoice 1520 was the most expensive product I tested. But what I found is that, as usual, Ina knows best.
This electric sharpener is a solid piece of machinery that offers a turnkey solution to reviving both straight and serrated dull knives. It can even help bring knives that are chipped and damaged back to life. In less than five minutes, you will have a knife that's as close to new as you can get without taking it to a professional. I'd say that makes it well worth the price. Need more convincing? Read my detailed review below, and if you're looking for other chef-approved kitchen tools, check out Giada de Laurentiis' go-to spatula and Geoffrey Zakarian's essentials for an at-home bar.
The Chef'sChoice 1520 is about as foolproof as it gets. It has three sharpening sections and utilizes abrasives made of diamond (the hardest material on earth — it can sharpen anything). One section is for Western knives, one for Eastern (Japanese) knives and one for polishing/honing all knives.
The process is simple: Turn on the power and run your knife from the base of the blade to the tip several times through each side of the Western or Eastern sharpening section. Do this slowly (for about five seconds on each side), then run the blade several times through the honing section.
It's easy to use and achieves a much sharper edge than many of the other knife sharpeners I tried. Dare I say it's a cut above? See the other knife sharpeners I tested here.
- Easy to use
- Compatible with Western and Japanese knives
- Achieves a very sharp edge
- Pricey
- Larger than most
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