How big of a difference can cookware make to your cooking? (Hint: a lot.) When it comes to professional kitchens, especially, chefs reach for high quality pots and pans to ensure their cooking stays consistently delicious. Biased though we may be, we’re proud to say that more than 100 Michelin-starred restaurants use Made In Cookware.
Luckily, you don’t have to be a professional chef to source quality tools. Sure, you can make food with a variety of implements—but once you have high quality pots, pans, and skillets that have been tested in the world's best restaurants, you’ll see how big of a difference having the right tool for the job makes. Discover why professional chefs choose our cookware and how it can elevate your home cooking to the next level.
The Importance of Quality Cookware in Professional Kitchens
From durability to performance, chefs and professional cooks know that choosing the right cookware for the job can have a big impact on their food.
Durability and Longevity
Picture your favorite restaurant and how busy it can get when you’re there. Now imagine all the cookware that goes into making your meal and multiply that by the tables full of diners around you, and all the times they’ll turn over in one night.
Professional kitchens need durable pans to keep up with that high volume. Plus, many restaurant dishes are cooked over intense, high heat—many chefs leave their pans on the heat for an entire service— so chefs need to use pans that are durable and made to last. Durable cookware is also necessary to stand up to frequent washing.
Heat Distribution and Retention
In terms of material, chefs tend to choose from a variety, including copper, stainless steel, cast iron, and carbon steel.
Each material affects the heat distribution and retention—for example, copper is extremely conducive to heat, so it reacts quickly to changes in temperature. Cast iron, on the other hand, retains heat exceptionally well, but doesn’t react as quickly. Once you know how a certain pan reacts to heat, you can maintain consistency in your cooking. This is especially important in restaurant kitchens, which prize consistency when making the same dish over and over again, night after night.
Versatility
Just like your home kitchen, space in restaurant kitchens is at a premium. Versatility is key. Pans need to be able to handle various cooking techniques, from high heat to a low simmer, from the stove top to finishing in the oven.
Types of Pans Chefs Use
As for specific types of pans chefs reach for, we’ve found our Stainless Steel and Carbon Steel to be chef-favorites, both prized for their durability and performance. Many chefs also include non stick and enameled cast iron in their cookware collection. Below, you'll find a collection of the most commonly ordered items from our chef customers—but by no means is it an exhaustive list.
Butter Warmers
The Butter Warmer is the pan you didn’t know you needed in your life. (Chefs knew, though, when they campaigned for us to add it to our assortment.) With a capacity of only 3 cups, its diminutive size proves especially versatile for melting butter, infusing oil with aromatics, reducing sauce, making chili crisp, or reheating a small amount of liquid.
Even better: the butter warmer features a rolled rim, so you can pour liquid without spilling a drop. The butter warmer features five layers of metal, with stainless steel and an aluminum core, meaning it conducts heat well and responds to changes in heat quickly. Our chef customers requested we make a butter warmer, and it remains a favorite pick for their kitchens—plus in Chef Carmy Berzatto’s fictional kitchen on FX’s The Bear, where it was featured in season 3.
Frying Pans
The workhouse of the kitchen, our Frying Pans feature slightly curved walls to allow for deeper searing and easier flipping, plus, often, a rolled rim to easily pour out liquids. We make frying pans in several materials, including Stainless Clad, Non Stick, Copper, and Carbon Steel. From perfect omelettes to searing steak to making a pan sauce, frying pans can do it all (or close to it).
Read our blog post about choosing the best frying pan material to get the best one for you.
Rondeaus
Our Rondeau features a large cooking surface with straight walls, maximizing the space for your ingredients to sear and cook without overcrowding. Our Rondeaus are crafted from five layers of metal for prime heat conduction and distribution. This also prevents hot spots which can lead to stuck-on messes, making it easy to clean. A rolled rim makes it easy to pour liquids, while two looped handles mean chefs can transfer the rondeau from stove to oven to table with ease. This is the perfect cookware for one-pan meals and dishes like pasta Bolognese.
Saucepans
With high sides and a rolled rim, a saucepan is extremely versatile and is considered a staple in every professional kitchen. Similar to our frying pans, our Saucepans come in a variety of materials. Whether you choose stainless, non stick, enameled cast iron, or copper, a well-made saucepan is a key piece of cookware in any kitchen. With a good saucepan you can make fluffy rice, soups, a variety of sauces, jammy eggs, and more.
Sauciers
The Saucier may seem like a niche, cheffy piece of cookware, but a few key design features make it more versatile than you’d think. With a cornerless bottom, a saucier allows for easier whisking and better circulation when cooking a sauce, broth, or stock. Chefs love our Saucier for clump-free risotto, silky sauces, and a variety of other uses.
Rolled rims mean easy pouring, while high rims keep your liquids contained. In addition to sauces, use a saucier to make grain-based dishes like risotto and oatmeal, or hearty stews like gumbo.
Why Chefs Choose Made In
As a company that branched from a 4th generation, family-owned restaurant supply business, we’re thrilled to be the top cookware choice for chefs like Grant Achatz, Stephanie Izard, Tom Colicchio, and Matt Horn. Chefs know our dedication to quality runs deep.
Commitment to Craftsmanship
Our products are used in the world’s best kitchens, so they have to be up to the task—which, of course, they are. Our cookware and kitchen tools are manufactured largely in the USA and Europe, using the best raw materials and made by skilled craftsmen who have been honing their skills for generations.
Just to name a few: our French Knives are made in Thiers, France by fifth-generation bladesmiths; our Stainless Clad is made by a renowned factory in Northern Italy; and our Enameled Cast Iron hails from Northeast France, where artisans have been hand-pouring professional-grade cast iron since the early 1920s.
Our commitment to providing best-in-class cookware and tools isn’t just a marketing tool—it’s a real pledge we upkeep with every product we make.
Material Quality
There’s cheap cookware made with subpar material, and then there’s our cookware. Take our Stainless Clad Collection, for example. The premium 5-ply construction features layers of stainless steel with an aluminum core, making for a durable pan that conducts heat well while also responding quickly to changes in temperature.
In a professional kitchen, that means our Stainless Clad can handle a variety of cooking tasks over and over and over again. Similarly, our Non Stick Collection features the same stainless base, with a professional-grade (read: extra durable!), non stick surface added. It’s the non stick pan that chefs trust.
Design and Ergonomics
A key feature in our Stainless Clad and Non Stick Frying Pans, Saucepans, Sauciers, and Saute Pans is the Stay Cool Handle. Designed with a hollow core, the handle actually dissipates heat rather than absorbing it. This reduces the risk of burns (especially important in fast-moving professional kitchens where high heat cooking is more common) and makes it easier to maneuver the cookware generally.
The handles are also ergonomically designed, mitigating the wrist pains that can accompany frequent cooking.
Direct Relationships
Our global network of over 2,000 restaurants are intimately connected to our design and development process, helping us ensure the products we make can perform at the highest level for a lifetime.
Sometimes, this even translates into new products designed with and for them—see the Fish Basket designed for Este and Suerte Chef Fermín Nuñez; Baking Slab designed to Chef Nancy Silverton’s exacting specifications; and our limited-edition iteration of Tom Colicchio’s first-ever pan.
Ready to Shop?
Restaurant chefs of all stripes choose our cookware for a reason: we’re committed to quality, design, and function. You don’t have to be a professional cook to choose the best, though. Shop our collection to find a few options suited to your kitchen, and get ready to cook up loads of memorable meals.
