Straight to the Point The best Western-style chef’s knife is from Wüsthof —it’s a powerful and sharp kitchen knife, but still refined. Hot on its heels is the Japanese-style Tojiro blade, which cruised through my chopping tests. I’ve become my team’s knife collector. I have multiple santokus, a few nakiris, four paring knives, two pettys, three bread knives, four cleavers, and a smattering of other random blades (including a vintage sashimi knife).  The one blade I didn’t have for an embarrassingly long time was a chef’s knife—I often turned to my cherished petty knife for all my prep tasks. So, I got three and (surprise) found that chef’s knives really are great! They’re hefty enough to tackle large projects, like boning a pork shoulder or cracking into a winter squash, and they also have the precision for mincing garlic or slicing shallots. We’ve tested (and retested, and re-retested) chef’s knives for years, and my latest round of hands-on reviewing shored up many of our top picks once again.…