Serrated is underrated.

The conventional wisdom isn’t always wise, and sometimes it isn’t even wholly conventional. Take the general perception that foodies, or real chefs, or some other vaguely defined group of culinary experts unanimously reject serrated steak knives.

It’s become one of those crib-sheet articles of faith that you can spout to make yourself sound like you know what you’re talking about. Don’t know much about coffee? Just tell everyone you only use a burr-mill grinder. Clueless about sports? Just say “defense wins championships”, no matter what sport you’re talking about. In over your head in a conversation about music? Explain “what really makes [artist, band, album, or song] great is the rhythm section.” Ta-da! Instant expert!

The knock on serrated knives is that since they can’t be sharpened, they’re objectively inferior, always and forever, the end. And don’t get us wrong: a lot of very smart food people agree. But do the needs of the head chef at a four-star Paris hotel really have much in common with you and your occasional steak?

Anyway, you can also find lots of culinary types who understand it’s a lot more complicated than that. The hotshot author of The Food Lab, J. Kenji López-Alt, tweets “I use serrated because they cut better and I don’t use a steak knife often enough that it’ll ever really need sharpening.”

A Chowhound commenter makes a good point about how “steak places use serrated knives because they’re going to stay sharper longer than non-serrated knives given the conditions you’re using them under- where cutting steak on a plate is one of the worst things you can do to a knife.”

An Amazon reviewer (for a different product, not these particular knives) who seems to know what he’s talking about says “I prefer serrated steak knives over straight edge as they are always ready to go and don’t require sharpening before every meal.”

None of that is to endorse these knives in particular. We just wanted to make the point that serrated knives might make a better fit for your particular steak-cutting regimen. Silly as it sounds, there are people who will hesitate before buying a $10 steak knife set over worries that the knives aren’t foodie-approved. So if these four J.A. Henckels knives look good to you otherwise, buy them, enjoy them, and never look back.

Besides, today’s unfashionable opinion is tomorrow’s maverick truth. Get ahead of the curve by advocating for serrated knives today. Now you’ve heard a few experts say it, so it must be objectively true, always and forever, the end.