In cooking, a chef's knife, also known as a French knife or a cook's knife, is a cutting tool used in food preparation. The chef's knife was originally designed primarily to slice and disjoint large cuts of beef. Today it is the primary general-utility knife for most Western cooks.

A chef's knife generally has a blade eight inches (20 cm) in length and 1 ½ inches (4 cm) in width, although individual models range from 6 to 14 inches (15 cm to 36 cm) in length. There are two common types of blade shape, French and German. German-style knives are more deeply and continuously curved along the whole cutting edge; the French style has an edge that is straighter until the end and then curves up to the tip. Neither style is inherently superior; personal preference will dictate the choice.

A modern chef's knife is a utility knife designed to perform well at many differing kitchen tasks, rather than excelling at any one in particular. It can be used for mincing, slicing, and chopping vegetables, slicing meat, and disjointing large cuts.

Martin Yan (Chinese: 甄文達; born 22 December 1948) is a Chinese-born American chef and the host of the award-winning cooking show Yan Can Cook.

With ancestral roots in Kaiping, Guangdong, China, Yan was born in Guangzhou, Guangdong, China, to a restaurateur father and a grocer mother, Yan began to cook at 12. He moved to Hong Kong when he was 13, and attended the Munsang College in Kowloon City. During this time in Munsang College, he worked at his uncle's Chinese restaurant and learned about the traditional method of Chinese barbecue there. He received a diploma from the Overseas Institute of Cookery of Hong Kong and later left for Canada for continued study. Ten years after his arrival in North America, Yan received a Master of Science degree in food science from University of California, Davis, in 1975.

Yan began teaching Chinese cooking for a college extension program and appearing on a Canadian, Calgary talk show in 1978 (on CFAC-TV, now CICT-TV). He has hosted over 1,500 episodes of the PBS cooking shows Yan Can Cook since 1982. His shows have been broadcast in over 50 countries. He currently hosts Martin Yan - Quick & Easy. He also hosts Martin Yan's Chinatown Cooking where he tours Chinatowns around the globe as well as "Martin Yan's Hidden China."

Ken Onion (born January 16, 1963) is an American award-winning custom knifemaker based in Kaneohe, Hawaii, USA who invented the "SpeedSafe" assisted opening mechanism for Kershaw Knives. Ken Onion was the Premier Knife Designer for Kershaw Knives.

As a US Marine, Onion devised a helicopter mechanism that was adopted for use by the military. In 1989, Ken’s wife, Noel, made arrangements through a friend for Onion to meet custom knife maker, Stanley Fujisaka. The two became friends and Onion learned his basic knifemaking skills from Stanley, building his first knife in 1991. Five years later, in 1996, Doug Flagg, then with Kershaw Knives met Onion while calling on an account for Kershaw and the two discussed an arrangement for the assisted-opening mechanism, which led to a contract. This contract led to Kershaw expanding its factory and number of employees to accommodate the demand for these knives.

Onion holds 36 design patents on different items including locks, mechanisms, and knife designs. Most notable of these is the Speed-safe mechanism used by Kershaw Knives. For these many designs and his work throughout the cutlery industry promoting the art of knife making, Onion was inducted into the Blade Magazine Cutlery Hall of Fame at the 2008 Blade Show in Atlanta, Georgia as the 45th and youngest living member.