Top of the pots! Improve your kitchen wizardry with the right cookware: keen cooks Stanley Tucci and Gwyneth Paltrow like GreenPan, while traditionalists swear by old faves Le Creuset and Zwilling
Direct-to-consumer brands like Caraway, Our Place and Made In are also trending, but which will help you improve your panhandling skills? Here’s our expert guide to the pick of the pots and pans
Paltrow isn’t the only one obsessed with cookware. As the pandemic and a desire to be more health conscious has brought us back into our kitchens, cooking at home has become more popular. This has not only inspired us to spruce up our skills but also to upgrade our equipment. Today basic designs such as sauté pans have been updated with new shapes, colours and other functional details including detachable handles or removal baskets for steaming to make creating a gourmet meal that much easier.
The world of cookware, however, isn’t easy to navigate, with an extensive range of offerings that run from basic and affordable to super technical and luxurious. For years, the market has been dominated by renowned specialist brands ranging from Le Creuset and Staub (for cast iron), to Zwilling and Henckels (stainless steel), and GreenPan (non-stick ceramic).
Since the pandemic, a slew of direct-to-consumer brands have popped up, including Caraway, Made In and Our Place, the latter of which has become an Instagram favourite with its eye-catching colour palette. Their mission? To make cookware covetable again with functional yet stylish designs that look as good as they perform.
With so much on offer, creating your ultimate arsenal can be somewhat overwhelming. For this reason, experts advise that you start with the basics.
“I really dislike cookware sets because there will always be at least one pan that you don’t use. You need to think about your cooking style, and what you cook most often, and tailor your purchases to suit yourself,” says Susan Jung, food columnist and author of Kung Pao and Beyond: Fried Chicken Recipes from East and Southeast Asia.
“For example, I don’t have any stainless steel skillets or sauté pans because 75 per cent of my cooking can be done in a wok. I even cook non-Asian food in a wok,” she says.
Another important factor is the material, although there is no one-size-fits-all option. The most common are stainless steel, cast iron, ceramic and other non-stick coatings such as Teflon. Introduced in 1961 by DuPont, Teflon has always been controversial due to claims that it contains chemicals such as PFAS, which have been linked to cancer and other health issues. Fortunately, breakthroughs in technology have resulted in alternative non-stick coatings that are touted as less toxic, including diamond-infused ceramic and ceramic-coated aluminium.