Why do high-end restaurants use cheap cookware?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “restaurant quality cookware“
About Ava
Written by: Ava
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Why do high-end restaurants use cheap cookware?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “restaurant quality cookware“
About Ava
I think you’re mistaken. While some of the restaurant cookware might LOOK cheap, if you’ve ever looked up the prices, you might well be shocked. Vollrath aluminum and stainless pots are very popular in high end commercial kitchens. They’re not very pretty but they’re thick, durable and they work very well. They aren’t cheap though. These prices are from a discount online restaurant supply place:
We also used one of these kettles to make stock. Not many people would call this cheap:
10 Pcs Non Stick Cooking Set w/ Frying Pans & Saucepans
Have you ever watched a cooking show on Cable? Not the reality shows where contestants are asked to make something out of a fish, a jar of peanut butter and an apple, but a serious, instructional program that shows how to cook, step by step. Youtube is full of serious cooking demonstrations from the Culinary Institute of America, famous French restaurant chefs and others. Notice the equipment they use. Just one professional copper saucepan can cost hundreds, and the cover is extra. Look at their stainless steel outfitted kitchens: counters, sinks, commercial appliances and more. A professional restaurant kitchen is so expensive, restaurant real estate agents get extra for locations that already have a kitchen installed.
Don’t confuse well worn, even beat-up cookware with the cheap stuff. Their heavy duty pots and pans are in use 12 hours a day, every day, not just once a year on Thanksgiving Day like grandma’s turkey roaster.
EDIT: (6/5/2019)
Since I wrote this, I have learned that those beautiful, expensive mirror-finished stainless steel pots and pans sold at Macy’s to home cooks have no place in a professional kitchen. Keeping them shiny is too much work for the cleanup crew, and the cooks themselves only care about what’s inside the pot, not the outsides.
Calphalon 10-Piece Pots and Pans Set, Nonstick Kitchen Cookware
I’m not sure why so many people say they don’t . In reality, they often do use cheap aluminum cookwares.
They are much cheaper than the stainless cookwares from well known brands;
And even their stainless pans (not only disc bottomed pans but also fully cladded pans) are still significnatly cheaper than those brands.
Aluminum cookwares have many advantages over stainless steel cookwares, including;
better heat transfer, resulting in less hotspot (even cooking) and faster cooking (less labor cost, less waiting time, higher table turnover/revenue, lower number of burners required which you can’t just simply expand)
inexpensive
lightweight
(if it’s annodized) better non stick property, scratch resistance, ease of clean
It has some disadvantages, such as the possibility of metal taste or discoloration when cooking acidic ingredients, less heat retention (a flip side of the coin of lighweight), relatively unforgiving nature (which doesn’t really matter when they’ve cooked several dozens of the same menus everyday for several years), but the pros usually outweigh the cons in most restaurants, so they try to use it as much as possible.
The most important factor is the price. In terms of heat conducting property and other related benefit, there are better materials out there. Copper is not exactly all that better than aluminum because you need to spend a lot of maintenance effort for its lining (due to its relatively higher toxicity), but Silver is not only completely non toxic (unlike aluminum) but also has much better heat conducting capability. The problem is price.
Remember that you need hundreds of various cookwares in total, not a few.
For a moderately sized high-end restaurant, the price difference is not as important as it is for small restaurants, but it is still a meaningful difference. You need at least a dozen or more for each variety of frequently used cookwares, and several for each variety of less frequently used cookwares. If you buy two dozens of Demeyere Atlantis Pro 5-pc pots/pans set, it alone costs you $48k, even though you still need to buy whole lot more cookwares. If you go with aluminum, the same amount of cookwares can be bought at $1–2k.
If you start with $100k heavier burden, you need a way to either charge more, or bring more customers in, to make up the cost. But no customer would pay more because you use Demeyere. In fact, they don’t even know what kind of cookwares you use, unless they have an open kitchen environment. Even if the restaurant has an open kitchen, almost no one cares. Also, to maintain their superior looks, you need to baby them. However, cookwares are workhorses of commercial restaurants, and no one really babies them. They could, but it would consume more time, which leads to a higher labor cost.
You gotta understand that high end restaurants often don’t make much money, compare to regular restaurant franchises. Those restaurant franchises usually have similarly sized restaurants (around 5,000 sqft), and usually generate $500–900/sqft annual revenue. This is in fact higher than average high end restaurants. Constantly fully-booked busy high end restaurants could do $1k/sqft or more, but they’re a tiny fraction of high end restaurants. Also, their profitability is not any better, due to the higher cost of food, labors, etc.
Non-Stick Cookware Set, Pots and Pans – 8-Piece Set
They really don’t. They do stay away from the fancy looking cookware, but they use good cookware like cast iron, carbon steal & alum which all have excellent heat transfer.
BELLA 21 Piece Cook Bake and Store Set
They don’t. Some restaurant’s cookware might not be the prettiest but it is certainly not cheap.
T-fal, Dishwasher Safe Cookware Set, 18 Piece, Red
They don’t. What we use is seriously pricey, but it’s meant to be functional, not decorative. And we work it hard.
T-fal Ultimate Hard Anodized Nonstick 17 Piece Cookware Set
Because the cost of the cookware has very little to do with the quality of the food a skilled chef can turn out using it. It’s like thinking that you must have the most expensive computer and word processor app in order to become the next J.K Rowling.
Calphalon 10-Piece Pots and Pans Set, Nonstick Kitchen
Once you spend a lot of time cooking, you’ll learn that stainless steel is where it’s at in terms of cooking vessels. Non-stick is garbage, except for very few specific applications such as making pancakes and omelettes, where you really don’t want anything to stick to the griddle and using excessive amounts of grease…
T-fal Ultimate Hard Anodized Nonstick 17 Piece Cookware Set
Because the cookware takes a real beating in a busy restaurant and it would cost entirely too much to replace the high end stuff.
Cuisinart Chef’s Classic Non-Stick Hard Anodized, 17-Piece
While there are already many very good answers here, I just want to add one little anecdotal example. In Bocuse’s restaurant in France, an evaluation of the cookware a few years ago when Bocuse died was estimated at nearly 8 million euros.
Gotham Steel Pots and Pans Set 12 Piece Cookware Set with Ultra Nonstick
Cooking school graduates and professional chefs all have their favorites for a variety of reasons. Let’s look at the differences between the various metals and how they react to heat and food, and you’ll quickly see which types and pieces would be wise additions to your collection.
“At home” cookware is almost always nicer than the stuff used at restaurants.
Brands depend purely on taste. I like All-Clad, cast iron, Emile Henry, depending on what I’m cooking.
I also have a no-name, heavy, non-stick pan that’s unbeatable for eggs that my mom got at Marshall’s (a pretty hideous discounter out west), and you will have to pry it from my cold, dead, hands.
GreenLife Soft Grip Healthy Ceramic Nonstick 16 Piece