After you’ve invested in a quality chef knife, you may want to expand your collection with any of the following: 1 - A serrated bread knife for cutting loaves of bread. 2 - A paring knife — which has a very short blade - for tasks like paring apples or potatoes. 3 - A boning knife or filleting knife, depending on the cuts of meat and fish you typically cook. As a general rule, if the purpose of the knife is in its name (bread knife, filleting knife, even steak knife or grapefruit knife) it marks a task that will be difficult to accomplish with an all-purpose chef knife.