# Why do restaurant steak knives look terrible? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 13, 2019, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurant-steak-knives-look-terrible/827704 "2019-01-13T21:33:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Yorkshire\_Pudding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/59ef9b/32.png) [@Yorkshire\_Pudding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorkshire_Pudding)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2019, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurant-steak-knives-look-terrible/827704/1 "2019-01-13T21:33:01Z")
I’ll begin with a disclaimer: I’ve no idea how widespread this may be internationally. I’m very well travelled, but I am nevertheless talking about a fundamentally UK based experience. The steak knife which is provided when ordering steaks frequently looks like a functional utility knife from a domestic kitchen, or something which you’d find on a fishing boat. The nature of the blade is obvious: it’s needed to cut the meat. But the handle is almost routinely moulded plastic, often black. Like I say: functional and utilitarian, looking like a basic utility knife. It’s as though it’s suddenly been noted that the regular table knives won’t be adequate, so something has been substituted at the last minute from the kitchen equipment. And that’s it: it looks like equipment, not the trappings of the dining room. Why does the specialist cutlery which accompanies the most expensive thing on the menu so frequently jar with the rest of the flatware, and with the price tag and grandeur of the dish which necessitates it? ---
**Author:** ![campp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@campp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/campp)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2019, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurant-steak-knives-look-terrible/827704/2 "2019-01-13T21:38:27Z")
They probably don’t use wooden handles because of the possibility of harboring organisms. ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2019, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurant-steak-knives-look-terrible/827704/3 "2019-01-13T21:42:32Z")
And the wooden handles, no matter how well they are are varnished and sealed, can’t stand up very long to 5-6 washings a day at the force and temps those commercials dishwashers use to sanitize in 10 minutes. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2019, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurant-steak-knives-look-terrible/827704/4 "2019-01-13T21:51:34Z")
in addition to hygiene and durability, there is the possibility that nice-looking steak knives would get stolen more frequently than you might suspect. Think of how much is lost to theft in retail or the propensity of some hotel guests to take everything they can get away with. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2019, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurant-steak-knives-look-terrible/827704/5 "2019-01-13T21:52:56Z")
The same reason bowling shoes are ugly: if they were nice, people would steal them. Like 25 years ago my Dad stole two really nice wooden handled steak knives from a long gone steakhouse chain. Members of my family still use them. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2019, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurant-steak-knives-look-terrible/827704/6 "2019-01-13T21:53:47Z")
People probably don’t care about the cutlery as long as it does the job. I personally don’t. I’ve had steak at a restaurant twice in the UK, amongst other places, and I don’t remember anything about the cutlery, good or bad, anywhere I’ve eaten. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2019, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurant-steak-knives-look-terrible/827704/7 "2019-01-13T21:58:33Z")
> [@campp](#): > > They probably don’t use wooden handles because of the possibility of harboring organisms. Wood is generally more resistant to harbouring organisms than is plastic. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2019, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurant-steak-knives-look-terrible/827704/8 "2019-01-13T22:42:18Z")
Many newbies getting into the restaurant business like to get the nice plates and cutlery. Unless one is offering the highest end dining experience, owners quickly realize that anything that can walk out the door will walk out the door. I remember reading a Bobby Flay interview in an industry mag many, many moons ago. He told about catching a customer trying to abscond with a large potted plant. So after the first nice matched set has dwindled to nothing, they get replaced with inexpensive, mass-produced cutlery, which will still walk out the door but won’t be as painful a loss. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2019, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurant-steak-knives-look-terrible/827704/9 "2019-01-13T22:57:57Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > Wood is generally more resistant to harbouring organisms than is plastic. The seam where the wood meets the metal can harbor organisms. I don’t know about table knives, but health codes usually require kitchen knives to have handles that are a single piece, poured around the tang, with a non-porous surface, and with the smallest possible junction between metal and nonmetal. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2019, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurant-steak-knives-look-terrible/827704/10 "2019-01-13T23:00:26Z")
It’s the sous chefs and dishwashers playing mumbly-peg out back. ETA God, I feel guilty if I take and extra coffee stirrer. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2019, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurant-steak-knives-look-terrible/827704/11 "2019-01-13T23:07:57Z")
All the steakhouses we eat at use single-piece, all-metal steak knives. Pretty heavy ones, too. It’s the Sizzler level of place that uses the wooden-handled ones. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a place that uses the knives the OP describes. ---
**Author:** ![Yorkshire\_Pudding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/59ef9b/32.png) [@Yorkshire\_Pudding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorkshire_Pudding)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2019, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurant-steak-knives-look-terrible/827704/12 "2019-01-13T23:26:43Z")
Well, I get that there’s an argument for plastic over wood (and potentially another in the opposite direction), but metal? Most restaurant cutlery appears to be metal. And it’s not just that a steak knife is plastic: it’s that it looks different from everything else, lower quality than everything else. The idea that having nice things is a theft risk seems a bit strange though, my whole point is that if everything else _is_ classy, why do steak knives have to look so crappy? Why single out steak knives? Why not plastic tumblers too? Salt out of the bag and pepper out of a tub? Unbreakable plastic plates? Because that would be ridiculous, obviously. I’m clearly being flippant, no restaurant would do that. So why isn’t it ridiculous with this one item of cutlery?! Why is it normal? ---
**Author:** ![Yorkshire\_Pudding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/59ef9b/32.png) [@Yorkshire\_Pudding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorkshire_Pudding)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2019, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurant-steak-knives-look-terrible/827704/13 "2019-01-13T23:29:22Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > All the steakhouses we eat at use single-piece, all-metal steak knives. Pretty heavy ones, too. It’s the Sizzler level of place that uses the wooden-handled ones. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a place that uses the knives the OP describes. Where are you based? I’m largely talking about UK eateries, though I may be wrong about them too. Maybe I’ve a skewed view, and maybe the majority of British restaurants do use good quality steak knives after all. ---
**Author:** ![Yorkshire\_Pudding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/59ef9b/32.png) [@Yorkshire\_Pudding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorkshire_Pudding)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2019, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurant-steak-knives-look-terrible/827704/14 "2019-01-13T23:38:05Z")
I don’t tend to order steaks very often any more. If I talk to my butcher about what’s good, then cook it the way I want it, I’m (almost) guaranteed to get a good steak…and that’s better odds than going to a decent restaurant with a name for steak, where I’ll _probably_ get one. Probably’s not bad, but for the price, I want better than probably! So I rarely bother. So maybe it’s simply the case that my experience of steak knives is woefully out of date! ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2019, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurant-steak-knives-look-terrible/827704/15 "2019-01-13T23:52:42Z")
I find that it depends on which kind of restaurant- if I’m getting a steak in Outback or someplace like that , I get a knife with a wooden or plastic handle. If I’m at the sort of place where the steak alone ( not including any side dishes) is over $50, then I get an all metal steak knife that matches the rest of the cutlery. ---
**Author:** ![Yorkshire\_Pudding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/59ef9b/32.png) [@Yorkshire\_Pudding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorkshire_Pudding)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2019, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurant-steak-knives-look-terrible/827704/16 "2019-01-14T00:22:56Z")
It seems we’re swinging towards an idea that in a really swanky place, you’ll get a good knife. But still…why is that OK? Why don’t you get a knife which is of a piece with everything else, everywhere you go? This happens with nothing else! Imagine if whenever you ordered scotch, it came in a plastic beaker. Everything else was perfectly acceptable, just that that style of whisky was in a cup that looks like toddlers use it for apple juice. And that was pretty commonplace, unless you went somewhere really upscale. So, even in less fancy places, it seems weird that the costliest dish has the knife that’s so sub-par. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2019, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurant-steak-knives-look-terrible/827704/17 "2019-01-14T00:50:24Z")
> [@Yorkshire\_Pudding](#): > > It seems we’re swinging towards an idea that in a really swanky place, you’ll get a good knife. > > But still…why is that OK? Why don’t you get a knife which is of a piece with everything else, everywhere you go? > > This happens with nothing else! Imagine if whenever you ordered scotch, it came in a plastic beaker. Everything else was perfectly acceptable, just that that style of whisky was in a cup that looks like toddlers use it for apple juice. And that was pretty commonplace, unless you went somewhere really upscale. > > So, even in less fancy places, it seems weird that the costliest dish has the knife that’s so sub-par. Maybe it’s different in the UK, but here in the US I have never bought a set of cutlery that had matching steak knives. Even when you can get knives from the same manufacturer , they don’t come in the same pattern and they may \*still \*have plastic or wooden handles. Perhaps it doesn’t seem odd to me that the steak knife at a restaurant doesn’t match the other cutlery because I’m not accustomed to them matching even at people’s homes. But the restaurants with the plastic/wooden handled steak knives - some of them do actually use plastic tumblers for soft drinks. And although the cutlery is metal, it’s not generally good enough quality to consider the plastic/wooden handle steak knives inferior. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2019, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurant-steak-knives-look-terrible/827704/18 "2019-01-14T01:57:41Z")
This actually came up as a topic of discussion on another board I frequent. In even some of the best steak houses you get a serrated knife that just tears through the meat instead of slicing it. The consensus is that the best solution is to bring your own knife and as a result of that conversation I now carry a personal folding streak knife with me when I dine out: > **[Shun Higo Nokami Personal Folding Stainless-Steel Steak Knife](https://www.amazon.com/Shun-Nokami-Personal-Folding-Stainless-Steel/dp/B000FNC5RS)** > > Buy Shun Higo Nokami Personal Folding Stainless-Steel Steak Knife at Amazon. Customer reviews and photos may be available to help you make the right purchase decision! ---
**Author:** ![GaryM](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garym/32/241_2.png) [@GaryM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaryM)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2019, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurant-steak-knives-look-terrible/827704/19 "2019-01-14T02:26:23Z")
> [@zoid](#): > > This actually came up as a topic of discussion on another board I frequent. In even some of the best steak houses you get a serrated knife that just tears through the meat instead of slicing it. The consensus is that the best solution is to bring your own knife and as a result of that conversation I now carry a personal folding streak knife with me when I dine out: > > [https://www.amazon.com/Shun-Nokami-Personal-Folding-Stainless-Steel/dp/B000FNC5RS](https://www.amazon.com/Shun-Nokami-Personal-Folding-Stainless-Steel/dp/B000FNC5RS) That’s a nice knife right there! I went with this one. Kai 5700 Folding Steak Knife, Silver [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FUW6ANI/ref=cm\_sw\_r\_cp\_apa\_i\_wl.oCbQC55JHH](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FUW6ANI/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_wl.oCbQC55JHH) It’s not quite as nice, but nice and sharp. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2019, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurant-steak-knives-look-terrible/827704/20 "2019-01-14T02:40:16Z")
> [@zoid](#): > > This actually came up as a topic of discussion on another board I frequent. In even some of the best steak houses you get a serrated knife that just tears through the meat instead of slicing it. The consensus is that the best solution is to bring your own knife and as a result of that conversation I now carry a personal folding streak knife with me when I dine out: > [https://www.amazon.com/Shun-Nokami-Personal-Folding-Stainless-Steel/dp/B000FNC5RS](https://www.amazon.com/Shun-Nokami-Personal-Folding-Stainless-Steel/dp/B000FNC5RS) > [@GaryM](#): > > That’s a nice knife right there! I went with this one. > > Kai 5700 Folding Steak Knife, Silver [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FUW6ANI/ref=cm\_sw\_r\_cp\_apa\_i\_wl.oCbQC55JHH](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FUW6ANI/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_wl.oCbQC55JHH) > > It’s not quite as nice, but nice and sharp. Sadly those could get you [arrested](https://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/news/local/new-york/2017/10/24/why-gravity-knives-remain-illegal-ny/106962940/) in [New York](https://www.akti.org/state-knife-laws/new-york/). [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurant-steak-knives-look-terrible/827704.md?page=2)