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What’s the score with stainless? I’ve been using a cleaver for years but I think the quality of the steel is pretty poor (it was £10) it just doesn’t hold its sharpness and gets bumps on the blade quite easily.
Light_EDDed-
Good stainless is excellent, and expensive stainless steel can be as good/sharp as expensive carbon steel.
Cheap Chinese cleaver steel is cheap and soft, but easy to sharpen, plenty of people around the world sharpening them on a brick.
The harder the steel is, the more likely it is to chip rather than dent.
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Personally I find it harder to get really sharp (admittedly this is probably a me problem), especially longer knives.
If you want something that you can be a bit rougher with, maybe leave on the side after use for a while then SS is better & the niwaki knives at £40 each are probably hard to beat in the Japanese style.
For me, carbon steel Japanese blades are more high maintenance but easier to get quite sharp and so maybe more rewarding to use/own if you care about that kind of stuff.
Acliff
Lw.
I haven't used their kitchen stuff but if it's anything like their gardening tools it'll certainly do the job.
Can't recommend anything in that style at a cheaper price but would say in the long term you might prefer a knife that isn't stainless steel.
On the off chance you're in central London any time soon, it's definitely worth calling in at Kataba in covent garden/TCR - more money but a good place to go and try holding a few knives.