One of the keys to running a successful kitchen, be it at home or at a restaurant, is to have a stock of sharp, quality knives. Selecting knives can be intimidating for at-home chefs, but luckily, Gordon Ramsay has four recommendations that should serve all your needs: chopping, paring, bread, and boning.

Ramsay recommends the all-purpose chopping knife as the benchmark of any kitchen, a heavy-duty tool able to perform a variety of cooking tasks with ease. Thanks to the utility of the sharp tip and double-beveled blade, it’s perfect for not only chopping but dicing, mincing, and slicing.

Paring knives are intended to do more delicate, specific work such as deveining shrimp and peeling and cutting smaller vegetables and fruits. The short blade allows for more control when performing more detail-oriented tasks, but it’s also good for scoring raw meat or bread dough.

A bread knife is serrated, meaning that the edge of the blade is lined with "teeth" similar to a wood saw, and this allows the knife to easily cut through tough bread crusts. A bread knife can also perform delicate tasks like cutting into tomatoes or softer desserts without too much downward pressure.

While it is highly convenient to purchase de-boned meat, a boning knife will give your kitchen an added edge. This knife separates bones and skin from meat very easily, and a boning knife is also ideal for cutting delicate cake layers, shaping pastries, and coring fruits due to the flexibility of the blade.