Zwilling J.A. Henckels Bellisimo 42-Piece Flatware Set

I am having a huge love-hate relationship with this tableware. The quality, weight, balance, finish and styling is phenomenal....gorgeous....perfect!

Sadly, it just isn't practical. It has to be hand-washed and immediately hand-dried. Otherwise, it spots to a degree of spotting that I've never seen before! Rewashing, even with a lot of scrubbing, doesn't get rid of the spots. The only way to make them spot-free is to use stainless cleanser.

When I was a kid we had two sets of silverware: One for everyday use and a different one for special occasions. I hated the holiday set. It was heavy and edgy; the forks had bulky, square prongs that split a potato rather than piercing it. The spoons were so big that we kids always had soup dripping down our faces. You've seen stuff like that. Of course, a kid doesn't know that life could be different. I was resigned to the bulky silverware just like the taste of fish oil, kisses from an aunt I did not like or a dentist's mechanical drill that vibrated my whole skull.

Things are better now. Dentistry came a long way and the aunt doesn't come around anymore. I still take fish oil but only so that I can annoy the kids and make them take it, too. Otherwise they'd never want to grow up. We take our turns, make faces, swallow and say "blaw". I always point out smugly that I actually don't have to take fish oil anymore because I am a grownup. That way our kids will want to get their own kids to have someone to annoy and boss around. Because of such seemingly trivial events the Western civilization may not end abruptly and those of you who don't have kids because you spend all your time reading Amazon consumer reviews will at least have someone else's kids to wheel you around the old folks' home. But I digress.

This silverware would have done it for us kids back then. It has a clean modern design but with a traditional handle shape---just like our comfortable old everyday set---while being nice enough to impress the in-laws over holidays. I tried some of the other Henckels thin-handled sets including those with "standing knives" but I did not like them. It's form over function. If you want your knife to stand on its edge you can always stick it in your food. My mother-in-law gives me "the look" when I do it but I don't want to talk about that right now. These handles have enough shape and mass to hold steady and keep from spinning in your hand but not so much bulk to look like it's an arthritis-friendly design. The knife handles are hollow---there is a straight seam where the blade is attached with a smooth transition so you won't be looking at unidentifiable food sediments in the crease like with our previous knives. The hollow handles give the knives good balance. The forks were designed for forking---I successfully tried them on a boiled potato. The spoons are unusual---a sleek drop-like shape that at first seemed smaller in volume compared to other spoons. They are not---the spoons have enough depth to make up for the missing surface so I won't lag behind during supper on account of a small spoon and I won't get "the look". Of course, unless people brought their own spoons to dinner it would not matter anyway because everyone at the table would have pretty much the same equipment just like in NASCAR. That's also why we decided to buy two sets so we have enough standardized gear for everyone.

The forks and spoons have stamps on the underside that say: J.A. Henckels International 18/10 China. They are letting us know that there is 18% chromium and 10% nickel in the stainless steel and also that we can't pay the Germans to manufacture such things anymore. Not in affluent Solingen, for sure, and impoverished East Germans won't do it for less anymore because it would not be fair and also because they'd lose their welfare checks. Fortunately today's Germans are very sensible people and when they hire the Chinese to make German products they at least make the stamping so small that most people won't see it without glasses and your unionized dinner guests won't berate you over your Chinese silverware. Also, the knives which could give the game away do not have any such compromising stamp and should a guest start scrutinizing the underside of your spoons or forks you can always enliven your dinner conversation by remarking in a nasal tone, "Is there something the matter? Did the kitchen help not polish your fork, Steve?"

I ran the whole set through a dishwasher right after unpacking to see what happens. It came out with the same mineral stains like it does with everything else, including our old silverware. That was reassuring because we are on hard well water and dishes are supposed to look scuzzy after a dishwasher cycle. I put it back in some water, wiped it with a scotch-brite and it came right off. We rarely did it with our old silverware but I'll make the kids polish this new set regularly and I'll always call it "flatware" when I do. That'll give them two more reasons to want to grow up.

This silverware deserves 5 stars even though I was tempted to subtract one for using stuck-up words like "flatware" and for misspelling a common word like "bellissimo".

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