Kitchen
A Michelin starred chef on the one pan he still uses at home
Cast iron, stainless, ceramic, copper and every coating on the market. Fifteen years of service narrowed it down to one.
By Martin Odeu
Published September 22, 2026 9:15am
People assume a chef’s home kitchen is full of expensive equipment. Mine is not. After fifteen years of service I own fewer pans than most of the people who ask me about them.
That is not a marketing line, it is just what survived. Every pan I still use earned its place by being the one I reached for when the ticket printer would not stop and there was no time to think about which pan to pick.
So when people ask what I cook on at home, the honest answer is short, and it is the reason I ended up having my own made.
The pan I cook on, for your kitchen
The pan Martin uses at home · 25 year warranty · 30 days to send it back
Normally €139,95 · from €69,00 · you save €70,95
Made in small batches · the sets go first
See availabilityFree shipping · Delivered in 1 to 3 working days · Pay in the checkout you know
Why home cooks are switching to the pan a chef actually rates
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1. Fifteen years narrowed it down to one
Cast iron, stainless, ceramic, copper, every coating on the market. Today I use one pan at work and the same one at home. That is not a claim about the product, it is just what is left.
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2. It is judged the way a chef judges a pan
Even heat, right to the edge. No hot spot that scorches one side of the fish while the other side is still raw. That is the first thing I test and the thing most pans fail.
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3. It takes what a professional kitchen does to a pan
Metal tongs, a hard sear, straight from the burner into a hot oven. A pan that needs careful handling is no use to me at work, and it is no use to you on a Tuesday either.
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4. It is the pan I would put my name on
I had it made to my own spec rather than picking something off a shelf and branding it. If it were not good enough for my own kitchen it would not carry my name.
“A pan does not earn a place on my stove because of what it costs. It earns it by still being there after a year of service.”
Someone brought me six of her own pans and asked me to be honest
It started as a joke at a dinner I was hosting. Her husband was convinced every pan in their cupboard was the same thing with a different price on it. Over dessert she said, half serious, that she had a drawer full of pans at home and no real idea which ones were any good. I told her to bring them. I don’t think she expected me to mean it.
She brought all six to the next one. Two coated pans from different eras, a stainless steel one they barely used, an old cast iron from her mother, and a couple of mid range ones bought on offer. I went through them one at a time on the counter, in front of whoever had wandered over to watch.
Nobody enjoys being told their pans are finished. But she left knowing exactly what she was cooking on, which is more than most people can say. This is what I told her, pan by pan.
How her six pans did, one by one
No brand names, because it is not about brands. Every one of these is a type you probably have in your own cupboard.
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The older coated panFinished
There was a scratch near the rim where the coating had already gone thin. That scratch is the beginning of the end for that pan, whether you have noticed it yet or not. I would not cook on it again.
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The newer coated panOn its way out
It looked fine. I ran a metal spoon across it and it left a visible mark right there on the counter. It has a year or two in it at most, and it will fail quietly rather than all at once.
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The stainless steelWorth keeping
Genuinely good for boiling, blanching and anything with liquid in it. It will fight you on anything that needs to release cleanly, so an egg or a piece of fish is always going to be work.
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The old cast ironKeep it, with limits
I liked it more than she expected me to. It weighs almost double what it needs to, and a tomato sauce left sitting in it picks up a metallic taste, so it is not the pan for everything.
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The two bought on offerLet them go
Both coated, both already dull in the middle, and neither heated evenly enough to brown anything properly. These are the pans that make people think they cannot cook.
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My own titanium panThe one I use
Not a fair fight, and I said so at the time. There is nothing sitting on top of the metal, so there is nothing there to wear off. I ran the same metal spoon across it that marked the second pan and it left nothing behind.
How I would rate them
| What matters | Chez Martin | Coated pan |
|---|---|---|
| Even heat to the edge | Yes | Often hot and cold spots |
| Oven and hard sear | Both, up to 260 degrees | Often neither |
| Metal tongs | No problem | Scratches the coating |
| What the surface is | The metal itself | A layer on top of it |
| How long it lasts | 25 year warranty | One to three years |
The pan I cook on, for your kitchen
The pan Martin uses at home · 25 year warranty · 30 days to send it back
Normally €139,95 · from €69,00 · you save €70,95
Made in small batches · the sets go first
See availabilityFree shipping · Delivered in 1 to 3 working days · Pay in the checkout you know
What it costs
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One pan
€139,95€69,0026 cm, the one I reach for most -
Set of two
€279,95€119,0022 and 26 cm, where most home cooks start -
Complete set
€419,95€169,0022, 26 and 30 cm, every job covered
The complete set works out at €56,33 a pan instead of €69,00, and it is the only way to have the right size on the stove every time.
What I told her at the end
If you have a drawer full of pans you have never really trusted, that is your answer already. You do not need six. You need one that still does the same thing in year five.
I did not start this to put my face on someone else’s cookware. I had the pan made to the same spec my kitchen uses, because I could not point home cooks at anything I would actually use myself without sending them to a restaurant supplier. It is what I reach for when nobody is watching and there is no camera on.
The pan I cook on, for your kitchen
The pan Martin uses at home · 25 year warranty · 30 days to send it back
Normally €139,95 · from €69,00 · you save €70,95
Made in small batches · the sets go first
See availabilityFree shipping · Delivered in 1 to 3 working days · Pay in the checkout you know
This is a paid advertisement published by Chez Martin. Martin Odeu is the founder of Chez Martin and has a commercial interest in the product described here. It is not independent journalism.
