Wüsthof

Wüsthof traces to 1814, when Johann Abraham Wüsthof converted his father's small Solingen grindery on the Weinsberg Valley's Wupper River into a dedicated "Shears Factory, Steel and Iron Works," working the trade from an underground cellar in the city that would become known as the City of Blades. His son Eduard added pocket knives as a second product line in 1836, and in 1881 Robert Wüsthof made the company's first trip overseas to the United States, beginning an export history the company says now reaches roughly eighty countries.

The house has stayed in Wüsthof hands for seven generations and has kept forging exclusively in Solingen rather than moving production abroad. Its current kitchen range spans chef's, utility, santoku, bread, paring, and steak knives, alongside sharpening tools, cutting boards, and storage blocks. The flagship Classic Ikon line is forged from a single piece of specially formulated stainless steel, a construction the company presents as central to edge retention and durability, and knives carry a limited lifetime warranty.

For a visitor, Wüsthof represents the large, still-independent end of Solingen cutlery: a single-piece-forged German chef's knife from a firm whose own founding predates the German Empire, made in the same Solingen valley where the family business began over two centuries ago.