What is the best cookware and knives to buy?

For home cooking, three basic knives will cover 99% of the cutting.

1) Chef's knife or its Japanese cousin Gyuto, come in various length 6-12". Length preference depends on the user.

2) 3-4" long paring knife, for small delicate items, peeling and paring.

3) 8-12" long serrated bread knife. Obviously it works well for bread, but also works for other types of cuts, but will not work well for thin, fine cuts due to the serrated edge.

If one needs to work with bony meat, poultry, etc, then a boning knife will be a good addition the the list above. If bread is not on the menu, then a bread knife can be substituted with a long slicer. For instance a 10" slicer is best for thinly slicing hams, top rounds, and smoked salmon.

For vegetarians, it makes perfect sense to add dedicated vegetable knife such as Nakiri or Chinese Cleaver a.k.a. Chukabocho. For the record, Santoku, contrary to knife marketing claims, was never a dedicated vegetable knife, but a general purpose knife. More on the Japanese knife types in the links section.

As for the particular brands, there are two main schools or types of kitchen cutlery, western and Japanese. Main difference being that the western kitchen knives are typically made out of softer(52-56HRC), lower quality steel(most popular being X50CrMoV15 for German knives and 440A class steel for US made kitchen knives), also being thicker and heavier. The edges on the western kitchen knives are also thick, ~40 degree included angle, or more.

Japanese knives use higher quality steel(VG-10, Aogami 1, 2, Super, Shirogami 1,2), are harder (58-67HRC) depends on the make, and quality. They are also thinner and with more acute edges, typically 30 degree included angle edge and lower, all the way to 8-10 degree angle.

Given the above, Japanese kitchen knives are much better in terms of pure cutting performance, in other Words they cut better and thanks to harder steel they retain initial sharpness much better. Lighter knives also induce less fatigue during prolonged use.

The main advantage of the western knives is their ability to withstand abusive use. Whacking coconuts and lobsters with a chef's knife is an abuse, since the chef's knife is not designed for those tasks, however western knives can perform the task without breaking or chipped edges, although they dull severely, thin, hard blades of the Japanese knives can be broken, or chipped badly while performing the same task,which shouldn't be attempted at first place.