The Best Knives and Spoons for Eating Grapefruit

Grapefruit season coincides perfectly with Winter and is a favorite amongst many for it’s sweet and sour flavor. Even better they are full of Vitamin C, a great fruit to keep you healthy through the flu-season.

But Grapefruit can be quite difficult to eat. The flesh not only sticks to the rind but also on the membrane spokes. While these can be cut away with a regular knife, the result is often a squirty and juicy mess.

That’s where Grapefruit knives come in. Not only do they easily separate the flesh from the skin and membrane but are curved to the shape of the fruit, allowing you to cut the very bottom of the grapefruit without puncturing the flesh.

Grapefruit knives are effective on all different varieties of grapefruit, including:

• Oro Blanco
• Red
• Pink
• White
• Pomello

Above you can see the difference between a regular serrated knife and a purpose-made grapefruit knife. While the difference might appear subtle, it makes the world of difference when the time comes to prepare grapefruit.

Unfortunately not all grapefruit knives are created equal. Some are cheap and nasty while others failed to effectively cut through the membrane without piercing the flesh.

Fortunately for you, we have done the hard work in determining which grape fruit knives are effective vs. which ones downright suck.

But a top-performing grapefruit knife is nothing without the proper technique. So before I cover the best grapefruit knife I am going to show you how to use it.

How to use a grapefruit Knife

1. Cut it – Cut your grapefruit in half. You will need to use a regular kitchen knife to do this. The bend in a grapefruit knife makes it unsuitable for cutting the fruit in half.

2. Circle it – Slide your grapefruit knife down where the skin meets the flesh. With a sawing motion, proceed to cut around the entire fruit, separating the pith from the flesh. Don’t push; let the serrated blade do the work. Doing so will make it least likely to puncture the flesh. The curve of the knife should slide right underneath the fruit flesh

3. Section it – Using the straight edge of the blade, cut the along the membrane spokes (the white lines that look like the wheel of a bike) from the outside to the center. Again, use a sawing motion and let the serrated teeth of the knife do the work. Repeat until all the pieces of membrane have been cut.

4. Lift it – With all the spokes sliced, the segments will lift up in small triangle segments. If you plan to use the grapefruit pieces in a salad you can lift up the segments as you go with the bent tip of the grapefruit knife. Otherwise you can leave them inside the rind-bowl and use a spoon to shovel the segments into your mouth.

The Best Knives and Spoons for Eating Grapefruit

Rada Cutlery – Best Affordable Grapefruit Knife

Surprisingly, the best all round grapefruit knife was made right here in the USA. Being American made, backed by a lifetime guarantee and reasonably priced, Rada Cuttlery’s grapefruit knife stood right out.

The larger serrated teeth along the edge of the blade made for fewer up and down strokes when cutting away even the toughest grapefruit rind. The blade is gently curved rather than bent, allowing the knife to follow the spherical flesh without cutting into it.

The only design choice we didn’t like is the pointed end to the knife. Care must be taken otherwise the point can piece through the skin of the grapefruit, resulting in a juicy mess. The flip side of this is that the sharp point makes it easier to pierce the grapefruit when making the initial cut.

Rada makes their Grapefruit knife both with a plastic and aluminum handle. Both perform equally, the main difference being the aluminum handle is not dishwasher safe. Because of this we recommend the plastic handled grapefruit knife.

Affordable Grapefruit Knife Runner-ups

The following grapefruit knives fell short in one way or another.

Deglon Grapefruit Knife Despite being manufactured in France, the handle feels like it is made from cheap plastic. Otherwise we found that the blade performed well and was suitably rounded to suit the shape of a grapefruit.

Cuisinart Barrel Grapefruit Knife – The long handle was difficult to grip with smaller hands and the blade was awkwardly curved and would often cut into the fruit rather than around it.

Better Houseware Grapefruit Knife – The only grapefruit knife we tested that rusted. We simply cannot recommend it.

Chef Craft GrapeFruit Knife – We were puzzled by this knife, it arrived flat rather than curved. As you might have guessed, a flat knife is fairly ineffective at sectioning a grapefruit.

Wustoff Silverpoint – Best Premium Grapefruit Knife

If price is no exception then the Wustof Silverpoint Grapefruit Knife simply cannot be beaten. Made in Germany, both the handle and the blade of the knife are of exceptional quality.

The blade is neatly curved allowing it to hug the flesh of the grapefruit without hacking into it.

The handle is easy to grip and nicely weighted. The hand even has a neat little thumb rest to prevent your thumb from sliding off.

Highly recommended.

Premium GrapeFruit Knife Runner Up

But just because a Grapefruit knife is expensive doesn’t make it the best. The following grapefruit knives were unable to justify their high price when it came to performance.

Rosle Grapefruit/Orange Knife – A device that claims to perform two jobs but fails to do either with any degree of satisfaction. The serrations of the blade were too small to effectively cut through flesh and the rounded handle allowed the knife to roll around when bumped. Don’t be fooled by the claims that this knife is Designed and engineered in Germany, it is manufactured in China. Unsurprisingly, the Rosle Grapefruit Knife also fell short when we Unsurprisingly, this product also fell short when we tested and reviewed orange peelers.

Paderno World Cuisine Grape Fruit Knife – While it may have an all stainless steel design, the Paderno Grapefruit Knife performed even worse than the Rosle knife above. Not only does it have the same small, serrated teeth, but to make it worse, they are blunt. This caused testers to push the knife rather than cut with it, which resulted in more juice. The blade of the knife is also bent rather than curved.

Lamson & Goodnow Walnut Grapefruit Knife – Another knife made right here in the USA. While the blade is amazing, it was let down by the handle. The rivets were loose and the wooden handle was showing signs of splitting after just a few hand washes.

Mafter Boourgeat 12912 Exoglass Grapefruit Knife – While it may be made in France the quality of this knife is on par with Chinese grapefruit knives we tested. The handle feels cheap to touch and is poorly weighted and has sharp burs along the seam. Incredibly poor quality for the price.

Messermeister Pro-Touch – Easiest to Grip

One of our testers had arthritis and made a great point when we were testing grapefruit knives – the slender handles of most grapefruit knives were difficult to grip with arthritic hands.

So this recommendation comes from her. The Messermeister Pro-Touch is by far the easiest to hold out of all the grapefruit knives we tested. The thick, rubber-handle and finger guard kept the knife stable even with a loose grip. The handle is also the lightest we tested, placing less strain on weak wrists.

The blade is no slouch either. The serrated blade is sharp which means less effort to slice through the grapefruit. The gently angled blade cut cleanly and easily segmented the fruit.

Large Handled Grapefruit Knife Runner-up

But not all large handled grapefruit knives performed as well as the Messermeister. The following knives fell short in one way or another.

Trudeau Stainless Steel Grapefruit Knife – While it may have had a large handle the Trudeau Grapefruit knife was of poor quality. Despite the rubber grip the handle was awkward to hold. The less said about the blade the better, it had one of the most unusable curves out of all the knives we tested and the point constantly poked through the skin of the grapefruit.

Tablecraft Firm Grip Grapefruit Knife – We may have gotten a faulty product but the blade fell out during use. Unfortunately we did not have time to re-order a new one for testing before hitting the deadline for this review.

Norpro – Best Double Sided Grapefruit Knife

It is important to note that we recommend double-sided grape fruit knives with reservations. By design you will always have one-side of the knife digging into your wrist when cutting, which is not only uncomfortable but particularly dangerous in the event that you bumped the knife.

Also, many double sided grapefruit knives have two blades, side-by-side. If grapefruit get’s stuck between this gap it can be somewhat difficult to remove. We found the easiest way was to poke it out with a toothpick.

After testing all the different “no-squirt” double sided grapefruit knives we came to the conclusion – These knives cannot live up to their claim of being squirt free. Looks like the only way to prevent grapefruit from squirting in your eye is to wear glasses while you eat.

But despite the drawbacks of double-sided grapefruit knives, many people love them. So we felt it necessary to include them in this guide even though we feel that they are an inferior way of cutting grapefruit.

The Norpro 1271 Grapefruit knife takes the crown when it came to doublesided knives.

The central handle was the largest of this style, meaning that there is less knife poking into your wrist as you cut. The serrated blade mean business, particularly the one designed to cut around the circumference of the grapefruit although care must be taken so that the point does not pierce through the skin.

The main downside is that the Norpro 1217 is not dishwasher safe, meaning you have to hand-wash it. This can be a little awkward given all the pointy and sharp bits, but this was also a problem with all the other doublesided grapefruit knives we tested.

Double-sided Grapefruit Knife Runner Ups

Let’s just say the bar was set low when it came to double-sided grapefruit knives. We simply cannot recommend any of the following:

HIC Twin-Blade Grapefruit Knife – The small handle makes this difficult to use and the wood does not wash well. The handle was showing signs of extreme wear after the test period, even with hand washing. The bend on the knife is too aggressive and would often pierce the flesh rather than cut around it.

Endurance Acrylic Grapefruit Knife – What’s the purpose of two blades if they are squashed together and offset? This knife is not capable of cutting out the membrane of the grapefruit. Couple this with the light duty metal that bends and flexes as you cut and you have a grapefruit knife that you should definitely avoid.

Grapefruit Spoon

A grapefruit spoon looks just like a regular teaspoon. The main difference is the edge of the spoon is serrated, allowing you to not only cut through the flesh of your grapefruit but also scoop the segments into your mouth.

Care must be taken when choosing a grapefruit spoon, there is a dramatic difference in quality between brands.

The teeth should be precisely serrated without being too sharp, it’s quite a balancing act. Too blunt and you will be unable to cut through the flesh of your grapefruit. Too sharp and you risk cutting your lips as you place the cut grapefruit segment in your mouth. And as I am sure you are aware, citrus fruit and a cut lip is a terrible combination.

Testers also noted that the serrated teeth on some Grapefruit Spoons extended too far up the edge of the spoon. This essentially meant that the teeth would saw at your lips while eating. The most comfortable grapefruit spoons had serrated teeth that only took up a third of the spoons edge.

Fortunately, we have done the hard work for you and separated the star grapefruit spoons from the rest of the pack.

But even the perfect grapefruit spoon is ineffective if you are using the incorrect technique. So before we look at the best grapefruit spoons I am going to show you the correct way to use a grapefruit spoon.

How to use a Grapefruit Spoon

First you will need to cut your grapefruit in half using a regular kitchen knife.

Slice 1 Make a slice along the membrane, pushing your spoon down until it touched the bottom of the grapefruit.

Slice 2 Repeat the same for the membrane on the other side of the grapefruit segment you are trying to remove, this should leave you with a triangular slice.

Slice 3 Push the spoon down between the skin and the flesh of the grapefruit segment.

Lift! With a scooping motion, lift the grapefruit segment up with the tip of your spoon. If you have done it correctly, the segment should lift out without any effort.

Tear – Before you can complete the process, flip the spoon over and tear at the membrane that boarders the next segment you wish to remove. The membrane should peel away from the segment and squash down into the bottom of the grapefruit, out of the way.

And repeat until you have eaten your entire grapefruit. It really is that simple.

Fortessa Grand City – Best “Simple” Grapefruit Spoon

Our favorite Grapefruit spoon. Not only does it look great and will fit right in with modern Flatware sets, but it’s effective too.

The serrated teeth only cover a third of the spoon head, effectively shearing through the membrane of a grapefruit while keeping your mouth safe.

The handle is nicely weighted and was not prone to bending like some of the cheaper grapefruit spoons we tested.

Oneida Michelangelo Best “Ornate” Grapefruit Spoon

The Oneida Michelangelo is another fantastic grapfruit spoon. The grapefruit spoon works just as well as the Fortessa one above. It’s sturdy, perfectly serrated and well made.

We include this option for those of you with heirloom style flatware. Our top pick would look odd when laid out with the rest of your ornate cutlery.