Unlike their beloved personal knife sets, the pans a professional chef uses at work are much more likely to be of the nameless, faceless, “whatever’s around the kitchen” sort of equipment. That’s largely for utilitarian reasons. When churning out cover after cover at the saute station you can’t exactly be picky about what’s on the shelf above the stove.
But that doesn’t mean professional chefs don’t have opinions about the pans they use every day during service. And the good news for most home cooks, is that often, the equipment on the fire in restaurant kitchens is affordable and easy to get.
Different chefs and different restaurants have different needs and different specialties, leading to very different answers to the question of “what is the pan you use most?” Which means that if you follow the advice of these 10 chefs from some of our favorite restaurants and bakeries, your kitchen will be pretty complete.
Made In saucier
It’s pretty rare for a DTC cookware brand to get namechecked by a professional kitchen, but Made In has made a lot of inroads to the restaurant scene over the years. Jackie Carnesi of Kellog’s Diner loves her sizable Made In Saucier, which she got in a breakup several years ago. “It’s great for items you might have to whisk like a caramel or anything you might need a rubber spatula for” she says. “It’s also great for tossing and, because it’s relatively lightweight, easy for flipping too”
