A second driver is men. More of them are cooking and want the tools to do it, he says.
"I'd agree with that. Men are probably our most prominent buyer of cutlery. And that's not true with our other products," says Susanna Linse, a spokeswoman for Sur La Table. "Men love their cutlery."
A $20 knife with a plastic handle will work just fine, at least for a time. But a $200 knife that's well cared for can be passed on to grandchildren. And if a $200 knife still seems mundane, custom-made knives designed to fit the hand can cost thousands of dollars.
Well-chosen culinary knives - rather than whatever a couple happened to get for a wedding gift - have risen in popularity with the boom in TV food shows, where chefs can be seen using all sorts of blades, Linse says. And Sur La Table's knife-skills classes are among the company's most popular.
In mid- to top-range knives, one choice a cook makes is between Asian-style knives, which generally have thinner blades and are lighter, and more robust European-style knives, which make cutting chicken easier.
Over the last eight years, Linse says, interest in Asian knives has grown so much that at one point sales of santoku blades - the top edge curves down toward the tip - surpassed the traditional European shape. Now, they're about even, she says.
John Pitblado, the "knife geek" at Surfas Restaurant Supply & Gourmet Food in Culver City, Calif., agrees: "Our customers are really going back to the traditional-style knife. Nothing beats a good Western chef's knife."
But Japanese knives, with the romance of a history dating to the samurai, "are here to stay," Linse says. Among the popular brands are Shun, with its distinctive oval handle, and the all-steel Global. The Global knife is in the Museum of Modern Art design collection, and it's "the sexiest look of all of our knives," Pitblado says. The Global santoku costs $120.
