Where to buy knives in Vancouver?

[twinkienic]

I'm thinking about making my first purchase of a chef's knife. (I've been using one of those knife sets that come with plastic handles and too many steak knives). I don't have a specific idea of what I want and was just planning on going to some stores with reasonable selection and helpful staff to take a look and try some out in order to decide. Any suggestions of good places to start (and where I won't break the bank)? Thanks!

[dapperdon]

The Sharpening House, 5331 West Boulevard. They have a range of Japanese knives, moderate to high end, as well as providing sharpening services.

[bogie]

www.paulsfinest.com is a Canadian-based webstore with great prices, service and selection. If you want Japanese knives, check out www.korin.com in NYC for your needs. They currently have a 15% Summer sale going. In particular, I would recommend the Tojiro DP Gyutuo (chef's knife). They are an amazing value, razor sharp, and have 50/50 symmetry which means that you can easily hone and sharpen it yourself (beware as MOST Japanese western-style knives have 70/30 or 80/20 edge symmetry, which means that you will likely be getting it sharpened from a pro).

[tdeane]

Try japanesechefsknives.com The Hattori knives are excellent. I ordered several knives from them and they arrived in just a few days from Japan.

[eatrustic]

Vancouver's only serious Japanese kitchen knife shop is having a pretty nice sale starting July 17: http://santoku-office.com/
The shop is located on Homer just off Yaletown (they are in one of those little Gallerias so you have to hunt them out.).

Although they carry knives up to a $1000. (for the serious collector or sushi chef) the sale knives are much more reasonable and represent a nice selection of quality Japanese knives -limited quantities. Worth a look.
(I'm not connected to them, just an appreciator of high quality Japanese knives!)

[fmed]

There really isn't a great place to buy knives here. Cookworks at Broadway and Granville has one knowledgeable person (an older gentleman). I purchased my last couple of knives from Tinland in Chinatown - they have Wusthof at lower prices than anywhere else I have shopped. I'm hoping for a place here that sells Japanese knives like that place in Calgary (Knifewear?).

[ck1234]

http://www.cookshop.ca/store/ sells knives too though not inexpensive.

They sell Japanese knives too, but I don't know if the ones you're looking for fmed.

[miss.foodie]

If you are looking for shun knives, take a look around at the Home Sense (of all places, i know) at various locations in the Vancouver area. A friend of mine just bought a shun chef's knife from the Home Sense on Robson recently. I don't know which shun line it was. After she told me about it, I went hunting around the Home Sense stores in Calgary. I managed to pick up the shun classic ultimate utility knife for $80 (normally retails for $100 US). They also had a variety of paring and bread knives there too, both from the shun classic and the ken onion series.

Also, you may want to check out the bookstore of your local culinary schools. I bought a whole set of victorinox/forschner knives here at the SAIT bookstore for really good price a couple of years ago (SAIT is the equivalent of BCIT.. though I'm not sure whether BCIT has a culinary program or you'd have to go to the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts, etc)

[Zydecopapa]

I know that Kevin will be getting the Shop Online function of the web site running soon.
http://www.knifewear.com/index.asp