Agility meets might in blade design. While many folks mistake it for a mere slicing knife, The Chris Kidder Special was developed with Chef Chris to be the knife for everything the finest cuisine demands. In an article in the LA Times, Chris was referred to as LA’s “Chef’s Chef” for his long tenure as Chef de Cuisine at Campanile, the James Beard Award-winning “standard” for Southern California cuisine, where he trained many of LA’s finest young chefs. Today Chris works as a private chef who regularly cooks for ex-presidents, super star athletes, rockstars and A-List movie stars.
Brother Chris is the brother-in-law of New West founder Corey Milligan. Milligan says, “I’ve been honing my cooking skills with Chris ever since we made breakfast for a college all-nighter party for St Patrick's ‘Green Beer’ Day. Needless to say we have both gotten a lot better since then. I finally had to break down and make this gigantic knife for him so I could get him to use one of my knives all day, every day. In the kitchen, he’s not easy to please.”
The New West KnifeWorks' Chris Kidder is the ultimate chef knife. Don't be intimidated by the size of this knife, the extra length adds leverage for slicing everything from sushi to meats, soft ripe vegetables, or crusty bread. The length allows you to leave the tip on the cutting board while you lever up and down in a traditional European style. Resting the tip on the cutting board gives added control for incredibly precise cutting. In SoCal, most meals have some component of raw fish, sushi, sashimi or crudo. The long blade slices raw fish with the precision of a Japanese Yanagiba or sushi knife. This knife can perform all the chopping, dicing, and general-purpose work of a chef knife while having the added length to cleanly slice the softest food in one long stroke.
In the details: the blade spine does not distal taper for the first 4" of the knife length, which maintains the right amount of stiffness for chopping as well as slicing. Most of New West’s other knives have a full distal taper from handle to tip. And the blade width is 1.75" to ensure that Chef Chris Kidder’s knuckles won't hit the cutting board when chopping; most long slicing knives are narrower.
