Opinel's Les Essentiels box set holds four small kitchen tools: a paring knife, serrated knife, vegetable knife and peeler, with natural beech handles or the colored Fifties set.

The blades are martensitic stainless steel, 55-57 HRC, and the wood handles are varnished against moisture and dirt: beech on the Natural set and colored hornbeam on the Fifties set. The vegetable knife isn't meant for large, hard-skinned vegetables like squash or celeriac. The paring knife, serrated knife and peeler are made in France, and the vegetable knife in Portugal.

Joseph Opinel began making his folding knives in Savoie, in the French Alps, in 1890, as a simple knife for working people. By 1909 he had registered the crowned hand as his trademark, and in 1955 Marcel Opinel invented the Virobloc safety ring. The Museum of Modern Art in New York has exhibited the Opinel as a design masterpiece, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London chose it for an exhibit in 1985.