5 Popular Cookware Brands Put to the Test: What's Actually Worth Buying

Introduction

Five cookware brands dominate online advertising: HexClad, Caraway, Our Place, Made In, and Misen. One raised over $2 million on Kickstarter for a single pan. One signed one of the world’s most famous chefs as its pitchman. One built a following around the idea that your old pans might be unsafe. One partners with Michelin-starred restaurants to signal professional credibility. And one claims to have invented a nonstick surface that lasts forever.

This roundup looks past the marketing. It draws on years of testing frying pans, saucepans, Dutch ovens, griddles, and sheet pans across these brands: heating speed and evenness, heat retention, nonstick durability, warping resistance on high-power induction, dent and chip resistance under dropped weights and utensils, and long-term real-world use. Customer service was also tested by sending each brand three emails covering basic questions, buying advice, and warranty terms, graded on speed, accuracy, and helpfulness.

HexClad: Hybrid Durability With Limits

HexClad is the most searched cookware brand online, runs more than a hundred ads on Facebook and Instagram at any given time, and has Gordon Ramsay as the face of the brand. It is also one of the most polarizing: reviews range from passionate endorsement to outright dismissal.

The core idea is a hybrid surface: raised stainless steel hexagons with ceramic nonstick in the valleys. The steel is supposed to shield the coating from scratches, so the nonstick lasts longer than a traditional coated pan. In testing, the concept does work, but not forever. The pan sears well, cooks evenly, and releases food as long as you grease it. Cook an egg with no butter or oil and it will stick. The hexagons do protect the coating from spatulas and spoons, but thin utensils that slip between the ridges can scratch the coating underneath, which is exactly what happened during a whisk test. A steel saucepan dropped on the surface 20 times during durability testing is part of the reason the verdict here leans on real use rather than first impressions.

Two other things to weigh: the rounded handles are comfortable but can rotate in the pan when your hands are greasy or you are wearing an oven mitt, and the 12-inch frying pen costs over $150 while brands like Henckels Paradigm offer similar construction and performance for a fraction of the price. Customer service was fast and thorough, though the one miss was a factual question about how the hybrid surface actually works that never got a real explanation.

The double burner griddle was tested separately for heat distribution, nonstick performance, and warping resistance on high-power induction.

Caraway: Peace of Mind Over Longevity

Caraway is best known for its colorful ceramic nonstick pans, and its pitch is not durability. The brand openly ran an ad campaign admitting its nonstick pans will not last forever. What it sells is peace of mind: non-toxic, clean, and safe cooking.

When new, the pans look great and perform well. The coating is slick, eggs slide, and cleanup is easy. Over time, though, the nonstick properties degrade and the exterior coating chips and flakes. Testing also found the cooking surface dips slightly near the edge, which pulls eggs and oil toward the sides.

The wider range is mixed. The stainless steel line is okay, but handles get hot, the rims are not flared, and the rounded handle can rotate when you tilt the pan. One test pan arrived with a dented handle out of the box. The enameled Dutch oven is decent but underperformed in moisture and heat retention tests, with side handles that are too small. The food storage containers are hard to open, opaque on the sides, and the lid trim on the tested set started separating. The bright spot is bakeware: the muffin tin works well because bakeware takes less abuse, so the ceramic coating holds up much better, and the sheet pan performed well without warping. Customer service gave an excellent, layer-by-layer factual answer, but the advice email would not commit to a recommendation, and the warranty response covered the basics without confirming whether damage would be covered.

Our Place Always Pan: Viral, But Just a Coated Pan

The Always Pan went viral as a 10-in-1 all-purpose pan, sold out repeatedly, and became one of the most recognizable cookware products online. The reality is simpler: it is an aluminum pan with a ceramic nonstick coating and taller walls than most frying pans. Like Caraway, the nonstick properties fade with use, and the thick, squared handle is uncomfortable.

Our Place Always Pan Pro: Titanium Without a Coating

The Always Pan Pro is a completely different product despite the similar shape. Instead of a ceramic coating, the cooking surface is titanium with a textured pattern, which Our Place calls NoCo technology, short for no coating. The company claims the texture creates airflow between food and pan for nonstick performance without chemicals, and that the surface is 300% harder than stainless steel and lasts a lifetime.

The first version had real design flaws: a boxy handle, a lid gap that blasted steam onto the handle, and a peg you had to clean around. The updated design fixes all three. In extensive testing, eggs cooked with oil and butter did not stick at all, and eggs cooked with no grease still released, which almost never happens outside a brand-new traditional nonstick pan. It sears well, cooks evenly, and has above-average heat retention, and it held up through full durability testing with no change in nonstick performance.

There is debate online about what the surface actually is, with some claiming a sprayed-on coating and a law firm reportedly investigating. Our Place has consistently stated it is pure titanium that is heat treated and polished, leaving the darker oxidized titanium visible only in the valleys. Testing so far supports the performance claims. Customer service was strong: a thorough factual reply, honest answers comparing the ceramic and titanium lines, and a warranty response in three minutes that was clear and detailed.

Made In: The Strongest Overall Lineup

Made In offers the widest range of the five brands, including stainless steel, carbon steel, enameled cast iron, ceramic nonstick, traditional nonstick, and knives, with a professional-quality pitch aimed at home cooks.

The stainless steel frying pan has been in use since 2018 and ranks among the top picks in the $100 to $200 range: the widest cooking surface of all 12-inch stainless pans tested, fast heating, and a secure, comfortable handle. The saucepan is excellent too, with tall walls, a very large helper handle, and the fastest water-boiling time on induction of 13 saucepans tested. The Dutch oven rivals Le Creuset and Staub, with the second-best heat retention, second-best moisture retention, lowest knob temperature, and widest cooking surface of the seven 5-to-6-quart Dutch ovens tested. The carbon steel griddle is the top pick across all griddles tested, usable on any cooktop, on a grill, and even over a fire pit.

Not everything is a winner. The carbon steel fry pan had the worst heat retention and distribution of any carbon steel pan tested and warped during testing. The CeramiClad ceramic nonstick performs well and is made in the USA, but it is one of the most expensive ceramic nonstick pans available, and like all coated nonstick, the coating will eventually wear out. Customer service was the strongest of the five brands: responses within an hour and a half to all three emails, with the best personalized buying advice of the group, including a sensible custom five-piece set recommendation.

Misen: Value Where It Counts

Misen targets the home cook who wants high performance at a fair price. Its stainless steel frying pan delivers: five-ply, 3 millimeters thick, wide cooking surface, and one of the few pans with sealed rims that does not cost hundreds of dollars. The rounded handle is a minor quibble. The Dutch oven, which includes a cast iron grill pan lid, performed well and gives you two pans for less than the price of one Le Creuset or Staub.

The pan Misen is most known for is the carbon nonstick pan, which raised over $2 million from more than 15,000 Kickstarter backers on claims that it is nonstick out of the box, needs no seasoning, will not rust, and lasts forever. In early testing it lived up to those claims: eggs slid freely, tomato sauce did not damage the surface, it did not rust when left wet overnight, and metal utensils did not scratch it. Around the 10-month mark, performance changed: if the heat was not right or the surface was not greased enough, sticky foods like eggs no longer released as freely, though they still came out fine.

Two theories explain the shift. First, Misen ships the pan with a thin layer of corn oil for transit protection, which may explain the ultra-slick first few uses; once it washes off, the surface stays nonstick but less slick. Second, the nitrided carbon steel surface does not take on seasoning like traditional carbon steel, and intentionally seasoning it actually works against it. Scrubbing it clean and skipping seasoning keeps the surface smoother for eggs. The bigger issue is the name: calling it carbon nonstick sets Teflon-like expectations, when the reality is a carbon steel pan that skips seasoning and handles acidic foods, good with sticky foods but less forgiving than true nonstick. Customer service is fast because it is AI: the factual reply was accurate, but the advice email returned definitions instead of recommendations, and the warranty reply oddly tried to upsell a new pan.

Which Brand Should You Buy?

The strongest overall brand here is Made In. The stainless steel and enameled cast iron cookware is excellent, the carbon steel griddle is a category-leading pick, and customer service was fast, accurate, and genuinely helpful. The caveat is breadth: better sheet pans, cutting boards, carbon steel pans, and knives exist elsewhere.

Misen’s stainless steel pan is an excellent value, and the carbon nonstick is worth considering with the right expectations. The Our Place titanium Always Pan Pro is impressive, and if the material is what the company says it is, the performance should last.

The coated options, including HexClad, Caraway, the original Always Pan, and Made In’s CeramiClad, all perform well when new but remain coated nonstick pans that will eventually need replacing. Similar performance is available for much less, and spending over $100 on a single nonstick pan, steel ridges or not, is hard to justify. If you buy from any of these brands, focus on the uncoated cookware that will actually last.

Conclusion

Marketing budgets do not always equal performance. Made In stands out as the best all-around brand, Misen offers genuine value, and the Our Place Always Pan Pro is the most interesting uncoated newcomer. The rest deliver pleasant first impressions that fade with the coating. Match the product to how long you expect to keep it, and you will not be disappointed.