The French Chefs Dinnerware Frypan 10.0

My wife was looking for a replacement to her Calphalon non-stick pans, so I bought her this All-Clad to try out. It's a nice looking pan, sturdy and well-built. But the first time we used it, to sear a tuna steak, the food stuck SO bad and the oil darkened the finish. I could not get the dark brown stains out of it to save my life. Soaking, scrubbing, nothing worked! I found Bar-Keepers Friend at Target and that did the trick, but only after another 15 minutes of vigorous scrubbing with a 3M pad. This was all from ONE USE on medium-high heat!The instructions say to avoid high heat, but I would say use low to medium heat and let the pan heat very, very slowly. In subsuquent uses it's performed better, but it's not a forgiving pan. You have to be very careful. I would think a "fry pan" would be good for frying..?!?! For this reason, I only give it 3 stars and will be hesitant to buy another All-Clad aluminum pan.

Love this pan for searing even more than my well-seasoned cast iron! While both sear exceptionally well, deglazing a castiron pan can result in an "off taste" in your sauce. The finishing taste of the sauces from this pan are excellent! The weight is good. Not heavy like my cast iron. It heats evenly and quickly and maintains the heat well.I'd rate it 5 stars for the quality of its cooking - but rated it 4 and deducted 1 star for the following reasons -- The cooking surface of the pan discolored after the first use. It's spotty. It doesn't affect the cooking, but for a quality pan, I feel this shouldn't happen. I wipe it down with a tiny bit of oil on a paper towel and it shines like new again. Until the next time you use it/wash it!- I'm not particularly fond of the handle. I'd prefer one that doesn't heat up and one that feels a bit more "balanced." Use a little caution when handling (or maybe its just me), but I've never had this happen with other pans. The first time I pulled this pan from a hot oven filled with chicken parts that I browned and then finished in the oven with little braising liquid, the pan immediately "tilted" sideways slipping from my grip - moving the protective potholder from my hand. I didn't drop the pan, but lost much of my liquid and got a very bad burn on my index finger where the potholder moved and my skin was exposed to the hot handle! Had the handle been a little sturdier or better balanced, this wouldn't have happened. Otherwise, a good pan, but I wouldn't buy the larger one like this unless I tested the handle first to check its balance!

Cooking, like any gear-intensive hobby, is full of people who will try to tell you all sorts of nonsense. Some (looking at you mom) will tell you that they have cooked their entire lives with some random cheap set of cookware from the 1970's, and that you don't need fancy, expensive pans to cook good food. Others will tell you that you don't have your kitchen set up right unless you have an entire set of all-clad pots and pans.Personally, I think you should figure it out for yourself, and decide what is important to you. but here is some information to hopefully help:Honestly, the first thing to note is that these pans suffer from some serious over-hype. If you're a chef who blames your bad cooking on having the wrong pans, you're going to be sorely disappointed by this pan (A good analogy might be a driver getting into a car accident in their Camry, and then saying its not their fault, and they could have avoided it if only they had been driving a BMW). Just because you get a shiny new pan doesn't mean you will magically transform into a 5-star chef, its just a refined tool that will let the experienced chef make the most of his or her ingredients.Now that we've gotten that disclaimer out of the way, I can tell you I absolutely LOVE this pan, and it is my favorite pan to use, for a couple of big reasons:1) The handle is the biggest reason. I tried out other multi-clad pans from the likes of calphalon, cuisinart, etc, and even though I thought they were OK, the handle on the all-clad pan is just longer, easier to grab, and angled exactly right. Because of this, I've been able to perfect my "tossing" of foods, and I feel like i'm in control of the pan, often moving it around, etc.2) Heats very evenly. Honestly, you can read all the science-talk you want about this pan vs the copper ones vs the million other materials you can make a pan out of (I know I did), but all you need to know is that multi-clad really does help with heat distribution. More of the pan gets hot, even up the sides, so you don't need to worry as much about hot spots.3) Made in the USA. I respect that.4) Great build quality and excellent finish makes cleaning a breeze...When used correctly, the pan just washes clean with soap and water. Occasionally, I use some barkeepers friend to return the pan to its original shine.5) Works beautifully with my induction cooktop... It heats very quickly and evenly, and allows for very precise manipulation of food.As I mentioned earlier, your liking of this pan will depend mostly on your style of cooking and experience with stainless steel (hot pan, cold oil, works every time to keep sticking to a minimum, and with something like fish, you should shake the pan a little bit for a few seconds right after adding the fish, basically so that the outer later of proteins of the fish get cooked and then won't get stuck later). For me, though, this pan has gone through a year of service in my kitchen, and has been an absolute pleasure to use. with its high build quality and ability to change temperature so evenly and quickly, I imagine it will be in my family's kitchen for a looong time (I don't even have a family yet, but I still imagine this pan will be a part of it, that's how nicely it is built).My last word of advice is that if you are just getting into the world of high-end stainless steel cookware, you should try some lower-end or just less expensive (like the calphalon) stainless pans just to see if you can see a difference from your previous ones. If not, i don't think the all-clad would really do much for you.

I am completely underwhelmed by the famous All-Clad fry pan. It's supposed to be 10-inches. In fact its working surface is less than 7 1/2-inches. It is also very shallow, with no depth to the sides. Finally, the edges are knife-sharp and it is only a matter of time until I slice myself open cleaning the damn thing. I prefer my Calphalon and Farber pans to this.

We never owned, nor looked at any All-Clad cookware in a store before. Just started shopping around the 'net for a GOOD QUALITY fry pan. I Liked this one and had it shipped. Came in no problem; how was I to know that All-Clad puts a stamp on the bottom of their cookware. Do they? I just read the one star review from {tjbuild87} about how his(her) pan is bogus and decided to inspect mine. Guess what, no stamp. I don't remember who I purchased it from, it's been a few years now. It works good tho.I also later bought an 8" pan and that one has a stamp on the bottom.The BIG question being,how to tell if what is sold to you is legit or not.Any help out there?