The butcher’s cleaver used to be essential in every farm kitchen and even in city homes in the days when people bought red meat in big chunks. Today, most of that is done for us and we get cuts and roasts neatly wrapped and cut to order. Even now, if there’s a hunter in the family, or if you’re like my sister who cooks a whole hog for friends and family at least once a year, you still need a meat cleaver. Combined with a butcher block that can hold up to the work a cleaver parcels out large table fare expertly. Even heavy soup bones yield to it.
From the Eastern half of the world there’s an entirely different cleaver with a different style. In Chinese kitchens a cleaver takes the place of the Westerner’s chef’s knife. Asian cleavers come in many different grades, some heavier and capable of anything a western chopping blade could do, and some much lighter and more refined. Used for cutting hard squash, small bones, root vegetables and nearly everything else, it’s sometimes the only knife in the Asian kitchen. The convex cutting edge slices, dices and even minces with an efficient two handed rocking motion.
Even the smaller vegetable cleavers are built of thicker steel than ordinary knives, and sharpening them can be a real chore. You’ll at least need a set of sharpening stones to keep the edge in top shape.
Traditional rectangular Chinese Cleavers often seem awkward to western chefs. The LamsonSharp cleaver conforms to the western way of working but keeps the strength and depth of cut.
If you only use a butcher’s cleaver occasionally the Restaurant Cleaver from Forschner/Victorinox will handle all the heavy chopping at a reasonable price.
For those who want the traditional style and none of the modern worries about whether this edge will chop that, our choice for the best cleaver is Henckels’ Twin Cleaver. Use it and swing away with confidence.
Although many chefs do use this excellent G-12 Meat Cleaver from Global to chop through bones, Global advises against that and recommends the cleaver for slicing meat instead. You'll still love this knife, and most of us already own a beater for cutting up soup bones. Keep the G-12 ...
Mundial's six-inch Light Cleaver is one of the company's few stamped steel products, but uses strong construction that involves much more than a simple tang embedded in a wooden grip. This high carbon stainless steel cleaver weighs 1.2 pounds and was designed to chop through bones.
In this cleaver, the tang connects ...
This lighter, 8-inch Chinese Cleaver from the Wusthof Gourmet series is actually the Chinese equivalent of the chef's knife and serves most of the same functions. Built with the Gourmet pattern of laser-cut steel and full tang handle, this handy slicer shouldn't be used like a butcher's cleaver.
The vegetable cleaver ...
The nakiri bocho, a common knife in Japanese kitchens, usually has a rectangular cleaver style blade with a rounded cutting edge on the forward corner of the blade. Wusthof's Classic Nakiri Vegetable Knife follows the same general pattern but with the strong forged bolster style of Wusthof's Classic knives. Claims ...
Victorinox's Chinese Cleaver with walnut handle isn't the butcher's cleaver western chefs know. This lighter version of the butcher's blade is the Asian equivalent of the chef's knife, the workhorse blade that an expert uses to dance through nearly every common kitchen chore.
Smaller than you'd expect a cleaver to ...
The Gourmet eight-inch cleaver from Wusthof of Solingen, Germany, may be finding a place in more kitchens now that chefs are looking for ways to reduce costs. If you're willing to buy larger cuts and do your own chopping, it's still possible to save a little money, but you'll need ...
Victorinox's Restaurant Cleaver offers professional quality at a bargain price. The Forschner version of this traditional kitchen knife cuts back only a little on size and weight, resulting in a blade that matches the needs of modern home kitchens.
With a blade only 2-1/2 inches wide and 7 inches long and a ...
Thick laser-cut steel and a cutting edge ice-hardened by J.A. Henckels' Friordur process makes the Twin Meat Cleaver strong enough for any tough chopping job in the kitchen. This is not a lightweight vegetable cleaver -- the blade of the Henckels chops through gristle, joints, and even heavy bone and ...
Not to be confused with the butcher's cleaver well known in European kitchens, this Vegetable Cleaver from Shun's Classic series is the Asian general purpose equivalent of the western cook's knife. With the superior edge and Damascus stainless steel of the Classic line, this knife is one of ...
A traditional styled chopping and slicing knife used in Japanese kitchens for preparing meat, fish, and poultry, this version of the Deba Bocho is like so many of the interesting knives I see on the shelves of Asian groceries--they look like good buys, but it could go either way. If ...
LamsonSharp really tried to make this knife as best as they could, and it sure looks like they succeeded. That's why it falls in a mid-to-high price range, but it's definitely worth the investment if you're in need of a thick cleaver.
The 8-inch blade is made from hardened and tempered stainless steel. ...
For many Chinese chef's, this type is not just an essential knife, but rather the single most essential knife in the kitchen.
Some will quibble and say that this is a Chef's knife and technically not a cleaver, but what's in a name? If you can use it to hack through ...
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