QSP Knife Chefmaster, an effective and affordable Wharncliffe blade knife

There is a lot of talk these days about the surreal video in which EU Crisis Management Commissioner Hadja Lahbib dispenses advice on how to put together a very improvised survival kit, comprising matches, cash and a knife  (in her case, a Swiss knife). Now, leaving aside the fact that cash and knives are two of the things that the European Commission has always tried to ban, and the overly cheerful and very irritating tone of the video, Ms. Lahbib said one thing right, which is that a knife, whether multi-purpose or not, is always useful in any emergency situation. Not so much for unlikely defensive use, but for opening bags of food (tinned food weighs, so it is less advisable as survival food) and for cutting preserved foods such as dried meat and sausages.

That preamble having been made, let's take a closer look at the QSP Chefmaster, designed by Keanu Alfano for the Chinese QSP Knife firm, which also has a good selection of excellent quality kitchen knives alongside its catalog of sporting folders. Their Kiritsuke was awarded at the Blade Show 2024 in Atlanta as the best Kitchen Knife of the Year. Keanu Alfaro is an industrial designer and entrepreneur from San Diego, California. His passion for knives started at a young age when his father gave him a folding knife. He earned a Master's degree in business management in 2019 and started designing innovative knives and tools in 2020, collaborating on over 40 projects by 2022 with companies such as Boker, Fox, Kubey, Bestechman and, of course, QSP.

QSP Chefmaster, a great little knife

Let's start from the outside, i.e. the packaging: the QSP Chefmaster comes in a cellophane bag, inside a cardboard box with a polyurethane foam inner liner shaped to perfectly accommodate the closed knife. There are also two nice stickers and a lifetime warranty certificate. This is a rather meagre package compared to what other Chinese brands have accustomed us to by now, but still neat. The Chefmaser is a liner lock folding pocket knife with side flipper; the blade can also be opened by using a thumb stud.

The handle consists of a pair of black G10 scales concealing two stainless steel liners, but alternatively options include ivory-coloured G10 or coarse Micarta scales. Another option concerns the finish of the blade, which can be satin stainless steel or with a black coating. The most striking feature of the Chefmaster as soon as you open it is the particular profile of the blade, a quite wide Wharncliffe design, which immediately communicates a great feeling of efficiency. This is reinforced once you get hold of it: the handle profile is very well designed and, thanks also to the deep finger groove in front of the flipper fin, allows for an extremely firm grip on the knife.

The finely textured surface does the rest; the additional grooves seem to have only a decorative function and may not even be there at all; the small medallion on the head of the pivot pin visible from the left side also has decorative purposes. The blade opens by running on ceramic ball bearings that make movement extremely smooth. A stainless steel clip is screwed onto the right side of the handle, allowing the knife to be carried tip-up, which can be easily swapped from one side to the other or removed.

Let's go back to the blade: it measures 81 mm in length with a maximum thickness of 3.5 mm at the back, but thanks to the flat grind the blade is on average much thinner. The edge is smooth and the factory sharpness is truly excellent. The Chefmaster may not be a kitchen knife, but it really is perfect for tackling salami, Kaminwurz but also cheeses and other foodstuffs with a rather compact consistency that traditionally find a place in the hunter's backpack. The peculiar shape of the flipper, which when the blade is open is almost entirely enveloped by the handle scales, also has another interesting function: when the liner lock is operated to close the blade, it acts as a released blade "warning indicator", a side effect that increases the level of safety of this folder. When closed, the QSP Chefmaster measures 114 millimetres with a weight of 125 grams: not a feather by any means, but it has plenty of blade, and steel weighs. What is not heavy at all is its retail price: $67 for the version with G10 handle and only a couple bucks more for the one with Micarta handle. Definitely, the QSP Chefmaster is interesting for those who want to include a knife that is perfectly dedicated to food cutting in their personal urban survival kit.

QSP Chefmaster technical specifications and price

To find out more please visit the QSP Knife website.