Types of Cheese Knives

There are six cheese knife shapes in common use, and the three that matter are the skeleton knife for soft cheese, the spade for hard cheese, and a flat spreader. Everything else in a set is either a serving tool or a shape built for one specific cheese. The reason the shapes differ at all is simple: soft cheese sticks to metal and hard cheese resists it, and no single blade handles both well.

The shapes, and what each one cuts

Soft cheese: the skeleton knife

Soft cheese fails in one specific way. A solid blade has enough surface area that the cheese grips it, so instead of parting the wedge you drag it, and the cut face tears. Cutting most of the metal out of the blade leaves narrow ribs doing the work, the contact area collapses, and the slice releases on its own.

That is the entire purpose of the holes, and it is why the skeleton knife looks like a mistake until the first time you use it on a cold brie. The alternative on very soft cheese is to stop cutting and start spreading.

Hard cheese: the spade, and when to use a slicer instead

Hard aged cheese needs force applied through a short, stiff blade. The spade is wide and chisel-shaped because you push down and lever rather than drawing a long blade across, which is how people end up snapping thin knives on parmesan.

If a household eats a lot of hard cheese off a block, a slicer is the better tool than any knife in a set. A plane-style slicer like the BOSKA Monaco+ takes an even sheet off the face and leaves it flat, so the next cut starts from a clean surface rather than a ragged one. The best cheese slicers roundup goes through the three designs - plane, handheld wire and wire-on-a-board - and which cheeses each one can actually cut.

The tools in a set that are not knives

• The forked-tip knife is really a serving tool. It cuts semi-hard cheese adequately and its actual job is lifting the slice you just cut, which is why it stays on the board.
• The pointed fork that comes in larger sets is for olives, cornichons and chunks of hard cheese. Useful, not a knife.
• The wire cutter is a specialist. It is excellent on fresh mozzarella and crumbly goat, and it does nothing a knife cannot do on anything firmer.
• The cheese plane shaves rather than cuts and suits semi-hard cheese on bread. It is the shape most households already own without knowing it is a cheese tool.

Steel, handles and what wears out

Cheese knives live an easy life — no bone, no hard chopping — so the steel matters less here than in a kitchen knife. Any decent stainless blade holds a usable edge on cheese for years. What fails is the join between handle and blade, which is why a set washed by hand lasts and a set put through a dishwasher with wooden handles loosens.

That is the one thing worth checking before you buy: if the set has wood, horn or decorated handles, plan on hand washing. The BOSKA and Zyliss sets on this page are both straightforward stainless, which is why they tolerate real use.

Which set to buy

• Best overall: the BOSKA set. German steel and blades genuinely shaped for cheese rather than scaled-down kitchen knives.
• Best for everyday: the Zyliss set. Japanese stainless blades around 5 in, dishwasher safe, and sized for a weeknight board rather than a spread.
• Best for hard cheese: the BOSKA Monaco+ slicer, used alongside a set rather than instead of one.
• Best as a gift: the Funnymoom gold-tone set, which arrives in gift packaging and covers spreader, fork, slicer and cutter.

The full roundup with scores is in the best cheese knives, and if the knives are going on a board you are also buying, the combined option is cheese board and knife sets.

How to lay them out on a board

Put each knife on or beside the cheese it is for, blade pointing in toward the center of the board and handle toward the edge. That sounds fussy and it is purely practical: a handle pointing out is one a guest can pick up without reaching across three other cheeses, and a blade pointing in keeps the business end off the table.

Soft cheeses get their knife resting on the wedge itself, because that is where it will end up anyway. Hard cheeses get theirs beside the block with a few pieces already cut, which is the single best thing you can do to make a board approachable — nobody wants to be the first person to cut into an untouched wheel.

If a board has more cheeses than knives, group by strength rather than by texture. One knife across three mild cheeses is fine; a blue or a washed rind needs its own regardless of how many knives that leaves for everything else. Where each cheese goes on the board is in how to build a charcuterie board.