What Type of Cooking Equipment is Used by Top Chefs?

Would you expect the top chefs to use low or high quality cooking equipment? My bet is you answered ‘high’ quality. And you’d be right. Many TV chefs use their familiar faces to market and sell their own brand of cooking equipment. Jamie Oliver springs to mind straight away. And you wouldn’t be far off the mark in thinking that Jamie’s own brand of cooking equipment is top quality.

His cooking equipment has to be of the highest quality. He has his own brand identity. He sells his shows, his recipes, his cooking style through the quality of what he produces. So the quality of his cooking equipment has to match the quality of the rest of his brand. Chances are, you wouldn’t think much of your Jamie Oliver deep frying pan if the handle came off while you were following Jamie’s show, frying up the perfect English breakfast.

Right, that’s enough about celebrity chefs. Because their livelihood relies on cooking food, the cooking equipment they use is going to be top draw gear. How about the rest of us? Is there a significant difference between the best quality and the cheapest cooking equipment? Does the law of diminishing returns apply to kitchenware?

The short answer is: cook a lot? Then buy the best. Good cooking equipment lasts a lifetime. It’s something you forge a relationship with. Your tools are your cooking pots. They can become an extension of your body, even of your self. for example, a good quality iron frying pan will never let you down. It is a heavy piece of equipment. It’s solid. You really feel it’s power every time you wield it. And there’s research to suggest that cooking slightly acidic foods such as tomatoes in ironware will have a beneficial effect on your health. Contributing to your daily iron intake, traces of iron are released into your food.

On the other hand, cheap cooking equipment is very likely to let you down.