Buying guides
Which one, for the job you actually have
A hub compares everything in a family. A guide answers one question — a budget, a first pan for someone equipping a kitchen from nothing, three knives that cover everything a drawer of ten does — with a ranked shortlist and a reason for the order.
- Getting started
The first five pieces: what to buy, and in what order
The five pieces that cook almost everything, in the order they earn their place — and the reason each one comes when it does.
- Budget
A first kitchen: everything that cooks, for less than one good pan
The cheapest complete set-up that still specifies properly: pots, a pan, a knife set, a board and shears, chosen where the low price does not cost a specification.
- Induction
Induction: the pans that work, and two that do not
Induction needs a ferromagnetic base, and two well-regarded pans on this site state plainly that they do not have one. Here is what to buy instead.
- Choosing
Coated or uncoated: two pans, two entirely different deals
A coated pan works on day one and dies in three years. An uncoated one is hard for a month and lasts a lifetime. The honest comparison, with five pans from both sides.
- Choosing
Eggs: the one job that decides which pan you own
Eggs are the hardest ordinary thing to cook, and the pan decides most of it. Five pans, from a flat omelette pan to a seasoned carbon steel one.
- Materials
Without PFAS: what the listings actually state
Five pieces that either state a PFAS-free surface or have no coating at all — with a plain account of what those statements do and do not mean.
- Small kitchens
One pan: if you can only own a single piece
For a studio, a caravan or a shared kitchen: five candidates for the only pan you own, judged on how many jobs each one actually covers.
- Getting started
Three knives: and why the fourth is a mistake
A chef’s knife, a paring knife and a bread knife cut everything a kitchen cuts. Five options across the three, and the reason the block full of knives is a trap.
- Budget
Under thirty euros: where a knife stops being a compromise
Five knives under thirty euros that name their steel, state a hardness or publish an edge angle — the three things that separate a knife from a shape.
- Materials
Hard or tough: the choice behind every kitchen knife
A 62 HRC Japanese blade and a 56 HRC German one are two answers to the same problem. Five knives that show both, with what each hardness actually costs.
- Choosing
The coating has gone: replace it, or change approach
Every coated pan eventually stops releasing. The moment it does is the best opportunity to move to a surface that never will — or to buy the same thing again, knowingly.