Everyone's stressing the chef's knife, but I'd be even more generic; when starting out, you can do almost every task with:

• A large knife (8" Chef, 7" Santoko, or Chinese Cleaver)
• A small knife (Paring or similar)
• A bread knife (serrated, 10" or longer)

As you add to your collection:

• A boning / filet knife
• Kitchen sheers (for snipping herbs without a cutting board or cutting the back out of a chicken)
• A carving knife (for slicing meats and large melons or splitting a cake into layers)
• A heavy cleaver (so you don't mess up your main-line knives when hacking up bones; heavy enough to use the back of the knife for cracking a coconut)
• A utility / tomato knife (mid-sized, serrated)

A few people have mentioned a larger chef's knife, but it's going to be harder to control. Develop good knife skills first, then move to something larger.

I know a few people who do everything but bread with a paring knife (and no cutting board, in their hand, cutting against their thumb), and I'd consider them "serious chefs" (southern, over 60 for the most part, but also a few apartment living europeans)

Everyone's stressing the chef's knife, but I'd be even more generic; when starting out, you can do almost every task with:

• A large knife (8" Chef, 7" Japanese Santoku, or a Chinese Cleaver)
• A small knife (Paring or similar)
• A bread knife (serrated, 10" or longer)

As you add to your collection:

• A boning / filet knife
• Kitchen shears (for snipping herbs without a cutting board or cutting the back out of a chicken)
• A carving knife (for slicing meats and large melons or splitting a cake into layers)
• A heavy cleaver (so you don't mess up your main-line knives when hacking up bones; heavy enough to use the back of the knife for cracking a coconut)
• A utility / tomato knife (mid-sized, serrated)

A few people have mentioned a larger chef's knife, but it's going to be harder to control. Develop good knife skills first, then move to something larger.

I know a few people who do everything but bread with a paring knife (and no cutting board, in their hand, cutting against their thumb), and I'd consider them "serious chefs" (southern, over 60 for the most part, but also a few apartment-living Europeans).