How to Make Your Kitchen Knives Last Forever, According to a Professional Chef

A culinary school instructor shares best practices for cleaning, care, and honing and sharpening (and why you should be doing both).

With the right tools and techniques, home cooks can easily restore a dull knife to peak performance. nito/Shutterstock

If you’re like me, you probably have a collection of kitchen knives in various states of usefulness. You know—ones so dull they’ll smash a ripe tomato instead of slicing it. Compare this to a well sharpened blade: When drawn lightly across the surface, it glides through with the weight of the knife alone, no extra force needed.

At the other extreme, my grandfather so excessively sharpened a knife over the years that the edge of the blade took on a wavy shape half its original width.