Demeyere Cookware: A Detailed Buying Guide

Demeyere cookware is a Belgian brand that's been around for more than 100 years. Though it hasn't become a well-known brand here in the US, the quality and design of Demeyere cookware is unsurpassed. Their Atlantis line is the arguably the best clad stainless steel cookware in the world, and their Industry 5 and AluPro nonstick are also excellent quality.

We take a detailed look at the Demeyere cookware lines and show you what makes this cookware so exceptional. We'll also discuss the drawbacks that may make it the wrong choice for some people, and compare it to other high-end stainless cookware. 

If you're looking for high quality clad stainless steel cookware, Demeyere is a great place to start.

Demeyere Cookware at a Glance

Here are all of Demeyere's cookware lines at a glance:

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About Demeyere

Demeyere (pronounced de-MY-ruh or de-MY-er), is a Belgian cookware company that's been around for more than 100 years. They were a family-owned business until 2008, when they were purchased by Zwilling J. A. Henckels, a German conglomerate that was founded in 1731 by Peter Henckels.

Zwilling-J. A. Henckels owns several cookware lines including Zwilling, Henckels, Staub, and Ballarini in addition to Demeyere. 

Demeyere is one of Zwilling's highest-end lines, and quite possibly the highest quality clad stainless cookware in the world today.

Since its inception, Demeyere has been a pioneer in stainless steel cookware. They were the first company to design cookware for induction cooktops in the 1970s, and Demeyere cookware has several design features unique to their brand (and which we think puts them a cut above other brands of stainless steel cookware, including All-Clad). We discuss these features below in What Makes Demeyere Cookware Special?

Demeyere cookware is still made in Belgium to the same exacting quality standards the company has always held (with the exception of their Resto line, which is made in Indonesia). 

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How to Buy Cookware (Features to Consider)

This section discusses important factors to think about before you buy cookware in general. From basics such as heating properties, durability, and safety to subjective considerations like design and aesthetic appeal, we try to cover everything you need to look at. 

We can't know everybody's preferences, but we can tell you what you should think about before you buy.

If you're sure you're buying clad stainless steel cookware, the next section gets into more detail about what to look for.

Heating Properties

Heating properties are probably the most important cookware feature to look at (assuming the cookware is safe to use). After all, you use cookware to transfer heat to your food, so how well a pan does that can make or break its usability. 

Heat transfer/thermal energy is a big topic, so we only look at the very basics you need to know to purchase the best cookware for your needs. But knowing just two basic concepts are enough to help you get the right pots and pans. These concepts are thermal conductivity and heat retention. 

Thermal conductivity--or heat conductivity--measures how evenly and quickly a pan spreads heat. For most cooking tasks, thermal conductivity is the most important property. Fast, even heating is ideal, as cookware that heats unevenly creates hot and cold spots and can be difficult to use without constant attention and moving food around to get it to cook evenly.

Cookware with good thermal conductivity includes thick aluminum, copper, and good quality clad stainless steel with an aluminum and/or copper interior. Aluminum and copper not only heat quickly and evenly, but they are also highly responsive to temperature changes, so they will also cool quickly and evenly when heat is removed.

All heat sources are somewhat uneven because burners are rarely the same size as the pans they're heating. This is another reason good thermal conductivity is important: it evens out the heat so that there is a smaller difference between the part that's directly over the heat source and the parts that aren't. It will never be perfectly even, but a good quality pan can make a huge difference in evening out the heat. 

Demeyere Atlantis has probably the best thermal conductivity of any clad stainless cookware, and Demeyere Industry 5 is also very good. This is because they have thick internal layers of aluminum.

(Compare these to All-Clad D3, with an aluminum core of 1.7mm--which is good, but not as good as Demeyere.)

Heat retention measures how long a pan holds heat after the heat source is removed. This is important for cooking tasks that need to maintain high, even temperatures such as deep frying and high-heat searing.

When you add cool (or cold) food to a hot pan, the temperature is always going to drop, but if you're searing or deep frying, you want to keep that drop to a minimum. The type of pan you're using is crucial to keeping the temperature where you want it.

Cast iron is the best material for heat retention, with carbon steel a fairly close second. However, thickness also contributes to heat retention, so even highly responsive materials like copper and aluminum can hold onto heat well if they are thick enough. 

Layers of stainless steel also help with heat retention, simply because steel is a poor conductor of heat so once hot, it holds heat for awhile. 

In general, if you want the best heating performance, you should buy the thickest cookware you can comfortably handle. Thicker cookware is always going to heat more evenly and have better heat retention than thinner cookware.

Yes, thicker cookware takes longer to heat through, but this is a small price to pay for an evenly heated pan.  

The Demeyere Proline skillet, with walls nearly 5mm thick, performs similarly to cast iron. But because it's aluminum, it also heats extremely evenly (unlike cast iron).

This makes the Proline the best clad stainless pan bar none for high heat searing. Many Proline fans consider it as good as cast iron or better, but we think cast iron still has a slight edge.

The Industry 5 skillet has a thinner aluminum layer, so it won't hold heat as well, but it will heat evenly and quickly. While you won't get the stellar searing you'll get from the Proline, the Industry 5 pan is lighter and easier to handle while still providing some of the best heating properties in the world of clad stainless cookware. 

In fact, you will be hard pressed to find another brand of cookware that matches the performance of Demeyere. Even their AluPro nonstick is an impressive 5mm thick--most other brands of aluminum nonstick max out at 3-3.5mm, so you're getting almost twice as much heat-spreading aluminum with the AluPro.

The price to pay for excellent heating is weight: Demeyere cookware is thicker than most other brands, thus it is also heavier. If you can handle the weight of Atlantis, it's the finest, most even-heating stainless cookware you can buy. If you can't, Industry 5 heats better than most other stainless brands without weighing a lot more.

Durability

Durability pertains to how much abuse cookware can take and how long it will last regardless of said abuse. 

Even if you're looking at nonstick cookware, which is the least durable cookware to buy, you can see by how it's marketed that durability is an important feature. Nonstick cookware typically has words like granite, titanium, stone, and diamond in the name or description. This is because people want the easy care of nonstick, but they want it to last (which, unfortunately, it won't, because nonstick cookware has an average life span of 1-5 years, true no matter how much you pay for it).

Clad stainless, cast iron, carbon steel, copper, and enameled cookware will all last for decades (possibly centuries).

If you want truly durable cookware, we recommend going with one of these materials.

Not only do they last, but they last regardless of how you treat them: high heat, spattering oil, stains and scratches, metal utensils, abrasive sponges (or steel wool), banging around in stacks or hanging from a rack...you can beat the crap out of any of these materials, and they can handle it. 

Demeyere clad stainless steel cookware is particularly durable compared to other brands, for a few reasons. One is that it's thick and heavy. Another is its Silvinox treatment, which purifies the steel and keeps it looking shiny and new for years. Yet another, at least on the pieces with the TriplInduc base, is that the exterior is all 18/10 stainless steel, unlike most brands, which put the magnetic steel, which is less corrosion resistant, on the exterior. 

Demeyere's AluPro is heavy and well made, too, but it's still a PTFE nonstick pan, so you may get an extra year or two out of it, but don't expect miracles. In fact, although AluPro is high quality, it's also very expensive for nonstick cookware, and you can find products nearly as good for a lot less. We like Anolon Nouvelle Luxe--and once again, we recommend just skillets rather than entire sets.

Safety and Stability

Safety is a hugely important factor in cookware. Nobody wants to feed their families food that's been cooked on toxic, unsafe cookware. 

Why don't we put safety as our first priority? Actually, we do. You can assume that any cookware we recommend is safe to use; in the case of nonstick cookware, safe when used correctly.

And we've done our research, so you can trust us. If you want to learn more, check out our guide to safe cookware.

So what's safe? We consider cookware to be safe if it is a stable, non-reactive cooking surface that won't react with food or leach toxic chemicals. 

Our picks for the safest cookware are clad stainless, enameled or ceramic cookware (traditional, not PTFE reinforced with granite, or ceramic nonstick), stainless- or tin-lined copper, cast iron, and carbon steel. 

All Demeyere clad stainless cookware has an 18/10 stainless cooking surface. This is surgical grade steel and one of the most stable surfaces you can choose for your cookware. Stainless steel can leach small amounts of nickel and chromium, especially when new, but these are not toxic in the tiny amounts you'll get from your pans. In fact, your body needs both of these trace minerals, so they may even be beneficial. 

Though we're not certain, it's possible that Demeyere stainless cookware is more stable than other brands, meaning it will leach smaller amounts of nickel and chromium. We say this because of the Silvinox treatment, which, as Demeyere says: "Silvinox® is a unique electrochemical surface treatment system that enriches the material by removing any iron and impurities from the surface. This makes the stainless steel easy to clean, and provides higher resistance to fingerprints, harsh detergents and strong acidic foods. The products retain their silvery-white colour even after years of use."

Even without Silvinox treatment, stainless cooking surfaces get more stable with use. If you are concerned about nickel or chromium leaching, avoid using your pans for acidic foods like tomato sauces when they're new, or let them simmer with a weak vinegar solution for several hours before using to help remove surface nickel and chromium.

Design/Ease of Use and Care

What are you looking for in cookware? This section discusses features that everyone should think about before they buy cookware. Everyone has different ideas about what makes cookware great, but these are important to look at.

Pan Shape

Do the skillets have enough flat cooking surface, but with sides that are sloped enough to get a spatula in there to stir or flip food easily?

Are sauce pans too deep or too shallow? Can a whisk reach the entire inner surface (if you use whisks)? Do they have a shape you like (our preference is straight sides, which make them easier to clean, but you may prefer angled sides for stackability, aesthetics, or some other reason).

Finally, and though they're not a deal breaker, do the pans have rivets on the cooking surface (where handles are attached)? Demeyere Atlantis and Industry have welded handles, so no rivets. This is more sanitary, and makes the pans easier to keep clean.

Weight 

Are the pans heavy enough to be durable and (equally important) heat evenly, but still easy for you to handle? 

Remember, for the best quality, you should buy the heaviest cookware that you can still comfortably handle.

We understand the appeal of light cookware, but it's more prone to warping, and it won't heat as evenly or hold heat as well as heavier cookware will.

Handles and Helper Handles

Are handles comfortable to grip and easy to stabilize? Are they stainless for durability? Do the larger pieces have helper handles? 

Handles shouldn't be a deal breaker if you like everything else about the cookware, but it's useful to have handles that are comfortable and can help you stabilize a heavy pot--it's just safer.

In all honesty, we think Demeyere's long handles aren't great. They're comfortable, but they aren't grooved, they're smooth on both sides, so they're not great for stabilizing. And in some cases the handles are too short for how heavy the pans are (at least our testers think so).

Also, not all pieces that should have helper handles. The large Demeyere sauciérs are heavy pans--both Atlantis and Industry 5--and helper handles would make them a lot easier to handle. 

Lid handles are great, though: big and roomy and comfortable.

Lids

Do lids fit tightly? Are they vented? Vented lids make it impossible to build up any pressure inside a pan, which speeds up cooking. If you ever want to try the healthy waterless cookware method, don't buy pots with vented lids. (By the way, Demeyere clad stainless cookware is excellent for the waterless method. You can watch a video they did about it.)

Are the lids stainless for durability and easier handling? Some people prefer glass lids, but glass lids are cheaper to make, heavier, more fragile, and typically the mark of lower quality cookware.

Most Demeyere cookware has tight-fitting, stainless steel lids, which we love. The Silver 7 line from Sur la Table has insulated lids, double-walled for even more heat retention (for about the same price as the standard Atlantis).

Is the Cookware Easy to Clean?

We certainly understand not wanting to spend a lot of time scrubbing your cookware. And clad stainless steel will never get 5 stars for ease of cleaning as long as nonstick cookware exists. 

But how easy it is to clean any cookware depends more on use than on type. In other words, if you're clever about how you use clad stainless cookware, cleaning becomes a fairly simple task most of the time.

Here are the steps to follow:

1. Heat pan on medium to medium high heat.
2. When pan is hot, add enough oil or butter to coat the cooking surface (you do not need a lot). Be sure to use a cooking fat with a high enough smoke point to be safe.
3. When oil starts to shimmer (or butter is fully melted but not smoking), add your food.
4. Turn temperature down, if necessary (depending on what you're cooking and the results you're looking for).
5. Allow food to cook without moving for several minutes. This allows it to form a crust which will release from the pan naturally with almost no sticking.
6. If you want to, make a pan sauce after removing finished food using wine or stock and some seasonings. The liquid releases the bits left in the pan, resulting in even easier cleaning. Swirl in a couple of tablespoons of butter to add gloss and richness, and spoon over your steak, chicken, fish, pork chops, burgers, etc.

Sometimes you will still get stuck-on bits, especially if you use high heat, or accidentally burn something. When this happens, you can let the pan soak in warm soapy water before scrubbing to help loosen the bits. 

Induction Compatibility

If you have an induction cooktop--full size or portable--then you need cookware that works with induction.

Even if you don't have an induction cooktop, you may want a portable one in the future, so induction should be a consideration. They're great for having an extra burner when you need it such as for entertaining, cooking outside, and many other uses. 

Induction uses magnetism, so induction compatible cookware has to have a magnetic base. Nearly all clad stainless cookware made today has a magnetic exterior so it will work with induction (18/10 stainless steel is not magnetic, so makers have to use a different grade of steel on the bottom).

Many brands of aluminum nonstick add a magnetic base to their pans so they'll work with induction. 

All Demeyere cookware is induction compatible. In fact, Demeyere cookware has special features that make it optimal for induction cooking--it's great with all types of cooktops, but it's especially efficient on induction. 

We explain in more detail below in the section What Makes Demeyere Cookware Special?

Overall Appeal

Finally, do you find the cookware pretty? Does your breath catch just a little when you look at it? Do you find pleasure in gazing upon it?

This may seem like a silly measure of whether cookware is worth buying, but there is definite value in owning things you find beautiful. For cookware, it helps make cooking more pleasurable, and it enhances the overall aesthetic of your kitchen. 

Don't buy cookware you find ugly or cheap. You'll hate using it, and you'll hate your time in the kitchen.

The good news is that the most beautiful cookware is almost always good quality, and the most functional, too.

Value 

Cost-per-year-of-use: What is the justification for spending a small fortune on cookware like Demeyere when you can get another brand for a lower price? 

We think there are a few valid reasons to spend a lot on high-end cookware. 

One is that it's more pleasurable to use and look at (as we discussed above). Another is that it's higher quality and will last for decades. If you do have a quality issue, you're more likely to get prompt, courteous customer service than you would from a low-cost brand.

But probably the best reason is your cost-per-year-of-use. Yes, you spend more up front for high-end cookware (or really for any high-end product), but this product will last, so your cost-per-year-of-use is actually lower than for cheaper products that you have to replace more frequently. 

If you spend $1000 on a set of Demeyere cookware and it lasts for 30 years, your cost-per-year-of-use is about $33. And chances are the cookware will last even longer than this and get handed down to your children, making the cost-per-year-of-use even lower.

If you spend $200 on a set of cheap cookware that lasts for 5 years, your cost-per-year-of-use is $40. Then you have to replace the cookware. If you buy another cheap set at the same price, you'll actually spend more. and your cost-per-year-of-use will be even higher. 

Cost-per-year-of-use is an excellent way to think about your cookware budget, even if it means spending more up front. This is particularly true if you're interested in high quality cookware that will be a pleasure to use. 

Warranty: If you buy good quality cookware, you shouldn't have to worry much about warranty. All good quality cookware comes with an excellent warranty. Most are lifetime warranties. Demeyere offers a 30 year warranty, but this doesn't mean the cookware is only good for 30 years. It just means that after that much time, it's unlikely anyone would have to return a pan. 

Any clad stainless cookware you buy should have at least a 30 year warranty. If it has anything less than this, it's probably not worth the investment.

One final word about warranty is that if you buy nonstick cookware--even Demeyere or another high-end brand like All-Clad--don't expect the warranty to cover worn out cookware that isn't nonstick anymore. Warranties are for manufacturing defects, and they won't protect you against normal wear and tear. Even if the nonstick does wear out through no fault of your own, it's almost impossible to prove it.

Sets Vs. Open Stock

Do you need a set, or are you just looking for a piece or two to complete your collection?

Whatever your situation is, it's helpful to consider the pros and cons of buying both.

Sets: Sets are a great way to get a lot of cookware at once, usually at a better price than if you buy all the pieces separately.

However, getting good sets can be tricky, because a lot of them have "filler" pieces: small pieces that you may not get a lot of use from. For example, sets often have two small sauce pans, such as a 1-quart and a 1.5-quart or 2-quart. These are useful sizes, but it's better to have one small one and one large one such as a 1-quart and a 3-quart. 

Sets usually also come with two smallish skillets at 8-inches and 10-inches. (We love that most Demeyere sets come with a 9.5-inch and an 11-inch, which are both excellent sizes.)

The bigger the set, the more likely it is to have filler pieces, although this is not the case with the Demeyere Industry 5 10-piece set, which has very usable pieces (which you can read about in the review below).

The upshot is to pay attention to the piece sizes in the set before you buy, or you may end up with a lot of small pieces that aren't terribly useful. 

Open stock: Buying open stock--that is, individual pieces--is the best way to get exactly what you want. For example, if you bought a set with two small skillets, you will probably eventually want to add a 12-inch skillet, which is the most useful size for most cooks. 

Or if you have a set of clad stainless cookware, you may want to add an enameled cast iron Dutch oven or a cast iron skillet--or a Proline skillet, which is one of the best cookware investments you can make.

If you don't care if your cookware matches, buying individual pieces is the best way to get pieces with the exact performance you want.

In fact, you will almost certainly have to buy some open stock pieces, because no set has everything you need. 

If you put your money into one or two high-end skillets--which is where you really need the durability and performance--and go lower end on sauce pans and stock pots, you may be able to spend the same or less than if you invested in a set.

There's no right or wrong way to buy cookware. Just be aware of what you want and need, and budget accordingly. 

Related: The 5 Essential Pieces of Cookware that Every Cook Needs (Plus a Few Nice Extras)

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What to Look For in Clad Stainless Steel Cookware

You may think finding good quality clad stainless steel cookware is a no-brainer, but there are a lot of things to consider. If your budget is big enough to consider Demeyere or All-Clad, then sure, you're getting good quality stuff.

But what's the difference between them, and which brand best suits your needs and cooking style?

Find out here.

What Is Cladding?

Cladding is a process that bonds different metals together using intense pressure. It was invented in the 1960s by John Ulam, who founded All-Clad company in 1971. Cladding puts the most durable and stable metal--steel--on the exterior, and the less durable heat-spreading metals--aluminum, copper, and in some cases, silver--on the interior.

The result is safe, durable cookware that spreads heat evenly and quickly (although how well it works depends on the quality of the interior layers, or heating core, which we discuss below).

Full Cladding Vs. Disc Cladding

Cookware can be either fully clad or disc clad. These are important features to understand.

Full cladding, as the name implies, uses cladded metal throughout the construction. Demeyere's diagram of a fully clad pan looks like this, in the case of their 7-ply Proline skillet:

And like this, in the case of their Industry 5:

Disc cladding, on the other hand, fuses a clad disc to steel walls, so only the bottom of the pan has a heating core.

Here is Demeyere's diagram of their disc-clad Atlantis cookware:

Which is better? Well, you might assume full cladding is always better, but it really depends on the construction: some disc clad cookware performs better than some fully clad cookware, and vice versa.

With both types, the heating performance depends on the thickness and quality of the heating core.

How Thick Should Clad Cookware Be? (The Heating Core)

The simple answer is that the heating core should be thick enough to spread heat evenly and retain enough heat to minimize cold spots and crashes when you add food to the pan.

The stainless steel exterior layers should be thick enough to be durable--it's typically 20-30% of the total thickness of the pan. 

When we talk about thickness, we're really talking about the thickness of the heating core and not the thickness of the stainless exterior. 

Good heating core thickness is different for fully clad and disc-clad pans. 

Full Cladding

The gold standard for even heat distribution is All-Clad. Their D3 has 2.6mm walls with a 1.7mm aluminum core. This is enough to spread heat well without being too heavy.

All-Clad knockoffs vary between 2.0-2.7mm total thickness, with most having a thinner heating core (i.e., less than 1.7mm aluminum layer).

This information can be hard to find, but it's important to know before you buy. (That's why we try to include it in all of our clad stainless cookware reviews, even if we have to cut the pan open and measure ourselves.)

Demeyere (and a few other brands, like Misen) go in the opposite direction. They give their clad cookware a thicker heating core that outperforms All-Clad and all of its knockoffs.

Industry 5, which is Demeyere's answer to All-Clad D3 (or D5), has an aluminum core that's 2.1mm thick. This is about 25% more aluminum than All-Clad D3 (or any other All-Clad line, including D5).

The Demeyere Proline skillet has an aluminum heating core that's 3.7mm thick, which is about 75% more aluminum than you'll find in an All-Clad pan. 

The drawback to a thicker heating core is that it makes for heavier pans. So you basically have to decide which is more important to you: maneuverability or heating performance? Because while both All-Clad and Demeyere are good quality, they offer different features that appeal to different cooks. 

Disc Cladding

To compensate for being just on the bottom, disc cladding has to be considerably thicker than full cladding to be spread heat evenly. 

It should also extend across the entire bottom of the pan, as this configuration creates the most even heating and the least amount of discontinuity where the heating core ends.

As you can see in the diagram below, Demeyere disc clad cookware has a 2mm core of copper and silver--the two best heating materials available. Just as important, the disc fully covers the bottom and extends slightly up the sides:

For these reasons, Demeyere disc clad cookware is considered extremely high quality.

Demeyere's 2mm copper/silver disc is equivalent to about 5mm of aluminum, which is impressive.

Ccheap disc clad cookware has a too-thin, too small base that doesn't hold or spread heat very well. This is especially noticeable in skillets, which use the curved sidewalls to cook food (and which is why Demeyere's curve-sided pieces are all fully clad and their straight-sided pieces are not). 

How Many Layers Are Enough?

What about layers? Is 5-ply cookware better than 3-ply cookware? Are more plies always better?

Contrary to popular opinion, the answer is no: more plies does not automatically mean the cookware is better.

A lot of reviewers get this wrong. They'll tell you, for example, that 5-ply cookware is better than 3-ply cookware because it's thicker. They're right that thicker cookware performs better, but they're wrong that more plies automatically means the cookware is thicker.

To know that, you have to know the actual thickness of the heating core. 

Let's take All-Clad D3 and D5 as an example. You may assume that D5 has a thicker heating core because it has more plies, but it doesn't. In fact, D5 has the same wall thickness as D3, and because one of the interior plies is steel, it actually contains less aluminum than D3. The interior layer of stainless steel is supposed to slow down the heating and make it more even (or "forgiving," as All-Clad says), but the actual difference in performance is quite small--and D5 is more expensive than D3.

Is it worth the extra expense? We don't think so, unless you really like the look of D5's brushed finish.

(We talk more about D5 in our article All-Clad D5 Vs. Demeyere Industry 5.)

But because All-Clad doesn't disclose the thickness of their heating cores (they consider it proprietary information), they can get away with this kind of marketing. And if people don't know to ask the question, then they'll buy a lot of 5-ply cookware that's more expensive, but not necessarily any better, than 3-ply lines.

So the right question to ask is not "how many plies does it have?" but rather "how thick is the heating core?"

It's the heating core thickness that determines how well the cookware performs, not the number of plies.

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What Makes Demeyere Cookware Special?

This is the most exciting section of this review because it gets into the details of what makes Demeyere cookware so great and what it has that other clad stainless steel cookware doesn't.

7-Ply Full Cladding and Disc Cladding (Atlantis)

We already touched on this, but Demeyere's original cookware, Atlantis, is designed like no other cookware on the planet. The straight-sided pieces have thick disc cladding comprised of a 2mm layer of copper and silver, while the curved-sided pieces have 7-layer full cladding. 

This is not a whim: Demeyere designed their cookware this way because straight-sided pieces like sauce pans and stock pots are typically used for liquids, so they don't need full cladding because liquids create their own convection currents that distribute heat evenly. 

Curved sided pieces like skillets and sauciers, on the other hand, use the whole cooking surface to distribute heat, including the sides: for skillets, this is important because there aren't liquids to spread heat, and for sauciérs it's important because sauces can be delicate and require even heat distribution, as well as more responsiveness to temperature changes (which is why the Atlantis sauciérs are thinner than Atlantis Proline skillets).

While you can argue whether this design is absolutely necessary, you can't dispute the brilliance of Demeyere's execution. (See the above section for a look at their cladding designs.)

Not all Demeyere cookware has this design. They made Industry 5 to compete in the American market, so all the pieces are fully clad, as this tends to be what Americans look for in high-end stainless steel cookware. 

This is great, because you can get superb Demeyere quality in either design (and there's no wrong answer).

No Rivets (All Stainless Steel Demeyere)

Demeyere welds their handles to their clad stainless cookware, so there are no rivets on the cooking surface. 

This is a more hygienic design because rivets can collect food gunk and be hard to clean around--after awhile, they can have black rims where you just couldn't quite scrub them clean (eww). 

Once you use pans without rivets, you may never want to cook on a pan with them again. 

Some people are concerned that the welds won't hold, but this is not the case with Demeyere.

Silvinox (All Stainless Demeyere)

Demeyere goes a step further than other cookware brands to make their stainless steel cookware even more stable and resistant to staining. Silvinox is a proprietary treatment that every steel Demeyere pan gets before it leaves the factory. While the details of the treatment are proprietary, we know that it removes impurities from the surface of the steel. This helps the pans resist stains and stay shiny forever. It also makes Demeyere stainless steel just a little bit easier to keep clean than other steel cookware.

And while Demeyere doesn't make this claim, we think Silvinox might also make Demeyere pans even more stable than other cookware and leach smaller amounts of nickel and chromium.

ControlInduc® (Atlantis) 

ControlInduc® regulates the maximum heat on induction hobs to 492F/250°C, so a pan can never overheat.

We're not sure how this works, but we know it works.

TriplInduc® (Atlantis, AluPro)

"TriplInduc® is a combination of three alloys that, according to Demeyere, provides up to 30% more efficiency on induction than other brands of induction compatible clad stainless cookware. Furthermore, it ensures that the base remains flat, allowing you to switch from one heat source to another at any time."

This information was taken from the (old) Demeyere website, but here's our interpretation: Demeyere sandwiches the magnetic 400 grade stainless steel between layers of 300 grade, 18/10 surgical stainless steel. 18/10 stainless is much more corrosion resistant than magnetic stainless, so the result is a pan with more durability than pans that have an exposed layer of magnetic stainless on the bottom (which is most other brands, including All-Clad).

Another feature of the TriplInduc base is that it's very flat, so it makes excellent contact on an induction burner. This may be why it's more efficient than other cookware with induction (but we don't know for sure).

The flatness, layers, and total thickness also result in a pan that's way too thick to ever warp, no matter how many extreme temperature changes you expose it to. 

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Is Demeyere Cookware Safe?

Yes, Demeyere clad stainless cookware is an excellent choice if you're looking for safe cookware. Their Silvinox treatment makes their stainless steel even more stable and non-reactive than other brands.

Their AluPro nonstick has a PTFE coating, so it is safe when used correctly (low heat, no metal utensils, etc.) If safe cookware is your main concern, we recommend not buying nonstick cookware. 

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Demeyere Vs. All-Clad: Which Is Better?

We did a whole article on this topic. 

Here's the upshot. Both are high quality brands, but they appeal to different users.

If you want excellent quality and well-performing clad stainless cookware that's also fairly lightweight and easy to handle, go with All-Clad. Any of their clad stainless is fine, but we recommend D3 for its low price and nearly equivalent performance to D5 and Copper Core.

If you want top-of-the-line performance and don't care about weight, then go with Demeyere Atlantis. Atlantis offers the best performance of any clad stainless cookware, but it's heavy--some pieces are almost like using cast iron cookware--so it can be difficult for some people to handle. 

If you want better performance than All-Clad (any line) but something still pretty easy to handle, go with Demeyere Industry 5.

Industry 5 is also all fully clad, so there is no feel of imbalance like there can be with the Atlantis disc clad pieces.

Overall, we think Demeyere is the higher quality choice. The rivetless cooking surface, Silvinox treatment, and superb attention to detail in design puts it over the top.

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Demeyere Cookware Pros and Cons

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Review: Demeyere Atlantis 

See Demeyere Atlantis on Amazon

See Demeyere Atlantis at Sur la Table

See Demeyere Atlantis at Zwilling

Features

Demeyere Atlantis is the original--and still the best--Demeyere cookware. The design of Atlantis cookware is exceptional, with an eye to usability, durability, and especially performance. No other clad stainless steel cookware comes close to the thought put into Demeyere Atlantis.

Here's what Atlantis has going for it:

You can also find most set pieces as open stock. amazon has a good collection and the best prices.

See Demeyere Atlantis on Amazon

Design

What we like: Atlantis has amazing features that you won't find in any other cookware. It might sound odd that the line includes both disc-clad and fully clad pieces, but this is by design. The pans are tailored to what they're used for.

Straight-sided pieces (sauce pans, stock pots) are used primarily with liquids, so they don't need full cladding because liquids create convection currents that heat evenly regardless of where the heat source is. 

Curved-sided pieces (skillets and sauciérs) use the bottom and the walls to cook food, so these pieces are fully clad for even heating throughout the pan. 

Also, the curved pans come in different thicknesses. The Proline skillet has 3.7mm of aluminum, while the sauciér has 3mm. This is because you want the skillet to hold heat, while you want a sauciér to be more responsive to temperature changes.

The welded handles make for a smooth cooking surface--no rivets to collect gunk and clean around. They're made of cast stainless steel for improved grip and are promised to "stay cool" as most cookware brands claim (do they? it depends if you're cooking on gas or electric stoves).

Handles and lid pulls are comfortable, though some feel a little too short for the weight of the pots.

The Proline skillet is brilliant, with a great shape and a huge amount of versatility due to its almost 4mm aluminum core.

The Silvinox treatment also makes Atlantis easier to keep clean and keep looking great than other brands of stainless cookware. 

What we don't like: One complaint is that some of the handles are a little bit short for the weight of these pans. Most larger pieces have a helper handle which makes a huge difference (both the 11" and the 12.5" skillet have helper handles). But some other pieces that should have helper handles don't, such as the large 3.5 quart sauciér, which weighs more than 5 pounds, making it a real handful when filled with hot liquids.

And the small sauté pan (2.6 quart) is a little too narrow (9.5" diameter) and deep for sauté use, though this is probably intentional because Demeyere designs sauté pans for liquid cooking (maybe this is a European thing, we don't know).

These pans are heavy--heavy almost like cast iron. This equals stellar performance, so we don't mind the weight, but if you have any ergonomic issues, these are not the pans for you; if you want Demeyere, get the Industry 5 (reviewed below).

We will also say that if you're not used to disc-clad cookware (or have only used cheap disc-clad cookware), the straight-sided pans are not only heavy, they will feel unbalanced because all the weight is in the bottom of the pans. You'll get used to this, but at first it can feel a little weird.

Use

There's not a lot to say about cooking on Atlantis except that it's fabulous. These pans heat extremely evenly, and because of their weight, they hold onto heat better than any other stainless cookware we've tested.

Once you cook on Atlantis cookware, you'll be spoiled for any other pans (except possibly high-end copper).

The Silvinox treatment helps these pans be less sticky than other stainless pans (as well as holding their shine), but don't expect nonstick. Be sure to use enough cooking oil to coat the pans.

Because the pans are heavy, they heat more slowly than other clad stainless steel brands. But faster and more evenly than cast iron, so this is a small price to pay for near-perfection.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Excellent quality and design, probably the best in the world.
• Excellent heating properties, heating evenly and holding heat well.
• Unsurpassed durability, with 18/10 stainless throughout exterior.
• Rivetless cooking surface and Silvinox treatment equals easier cleaning than other stainless brands.
• Very efficient on induction cooktops. 

Cons:

• Heavy--don't buy if you don't want heavy cookware.
• Expensive. 

Recommendation

Demeyere Atlantis is the best clad stainless steel cookware you can buy. Many Americans aren't accustomed to heavy disc-clad cookware, which is more popular in Europe (where Demeyere is made). But if you want the absolute best there is and don't mind the weight of these pans--the 11" Proline skillet weighs just over 5 pounds, the small (2.6qt) sauté pan about 6 pounds--this is the cookware to get (and no polishing required as with copper cookware).

Buy Demeyere Atlantis:

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Review: Demeyere Proline Skillet (Atlantis)

See Demeyere Proline skillet on Amazon

We don't normally review pieces of a cookware line separately, but the Demeyere Proline skillet is a worthy exception. 

If you want to invest in only one stellar piece of cookware, the Demeyere Atlantis Proline skillet is an excellent choice--and a skillet is one of the best places to put your cookware budget. 

You can get by with cheap disc-clad stock pots and even sauce pans. But pretty much everyone needs a durable skillet that distributes heat evenly and can hold up to all the abuses a skillet must endure in the kitchen (high heat, hot oil, banging utensils, and so much more). 

The Proline is more popular in the USA than any other piece of Demeyere cookware. People who own one generally love it, unless they discover it's heavier than they wanted. It's one of the few pieces of cookware of any brand that has a more devoted following than the cookware line itself.

The pan is heavy enough to use in place of cast iron for high-heat searing. The nearly 4mm aluminum core and nearly 5mm walls will hold onto heat like cast iron with no seasoning required and the stability to use for all other kitchen tasks. It has the TriplInduc base for induction efficiency and--probably even better--18/10 steel throughout the exterior for added durability.

And of course, the Silvinox treatment keeps the pan shiny for decades, and also makes it just a little easier to clean than other stainless cookware.

You may not think you need a skillet this expensive, but you will love it, and you will use it for everything. 

Check the reviews on Amazon to see how many people have fallen in love with the Proline. 

Recommendation

Our one reservation about the Proline is that, like all Atlantis cookware, it's heavy. The 11" Proline--our recommended size for the most versatility--weighs more than 5 lbs, so close to cast iron territory.

The handle is also a little short, but the helper handle makes up for that on the larger sizes.

If you want the best of the best and a skillet that performs flawlessly and will last forever--or if you just want an easier-to-use substitute for cast iron--the Proline is the absolute best option available.

buy the demeyere atlantis proline skillet:

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Review: Demeyere John Pawson 

See Demeyere John Pawson on Amazon

See Demeyere John Pawson at Zwilling

Demeyere John Pawson has identical specifications as Demyere Atlantis, but with a different design. The pans have an angular, minimalist look and feel that you'll either love or hate. 

Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of set options right now. Is Demeyere phasing it out? Maybe, or ithey could just be short on stock at the time of this review. The only set we oculd find was the 3-piece set shown here; it's priced at about $550--yes really. There are plenty of open stock pieces available. 

You can get the exact same performance from Atlantis, which has more buying options at a lower price. And since Atlantis itself is at the top of the clad stainless cookware market, we recommend going with that line instead of John Pawson. But if you fall in love with the design, you certainly won't regret buying the John Pawson. 

For details on performance and use, see the Atlantis review above.

We give John Pawson a low score on design because we think it's ugly, but you may like it, in which case you can give it an extra star or two. We give it a low score on value/price because it's more expensive than Atlantis without providing a better cooking experience--but if you like the design and have a big budget, this shouldn't matter to you if you, either.

buy demeyere john pawson:

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Review: Demeyere Silver 7

See Demeyere Silver 7 at Sur la Table

Demeyere Silver 7 is another Atlantis "knockoff", with the exact specs as Atlantis. Demeyere makes Silver 7 for Sur la Table, where it is sold exclusively.

This set has insulated (double-walled) lids, which make this a small step up from Atlantis. 

Right now, Sur la Table's only buying option is the 12 piece set, which includes:

• 9.5" skillet (Proline)
• 11" skillet (Proline)
• 1.5qt sauce pan with lid
• 3qt sauce pan with lid
• 2qt sauciér (lid for 3qt. sauce pan fits)
• 5qt sauté pan with lid
• 8qt stock pot with lid and pasta insert.

It's a great set with usable pieces, but at about $1700, it's not cheap. And Sur la Table may be phasing it out, as they used to have more buying options. If you're willing to invest this kind of money, you'll love the set, and you get double-walled lids for about the same cost as a set of Atlantis.

If you love the double-walled lids (for the same price), you can give Silver 7 another half star for design.

buy demeyere silver 7 exclusively at sur la table:

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Review: Demeyere Industry 5

See Demeyere Industry 5 on Amazon

See Demeyere Industry 5 at Zwilling

Features

While not as fabulous and feature-heavy as Atlantis, Demeyere Industry 5 is arguably the best choice for most Americans looking for premium, fully clad stainless steel cookware. It outperforms All-Clad D3, D5, and Copper Core, with more even heating, longer heat retention, and easier cleanup while being only slightly heavier. And while the sets are more expensive (though not all the individual pieces), the pieces are larger, without a single filler piece included--for example, 9.5"/11" skillets vs. the 8"/10" skillets in the standard All-Clad set.

This is probably all intentional. The Industry 5 writeup on the Zwilling site calls it "American-style" cookware, and they probably created it specifically to compete with All-Clad. But instead of going for a cheaper, Chinese-made knockoff as most of All-Clad's competitors, Demeyere made theirs better. 

You may have seen other cookware brands similar to Industry 5, including Industry 5 Plus (or see an affordable skillet on Amazon), which has glass lids and was initially called Zwilling Sensation (now discontinued). Then there's Sur la Table's Essential5, which has no Silvinox treatment and--worst of all-riveted handles. Finally, there is Zwilling Aurora, which has the same build quality as Industry5 but with riveted handles and no Silvinox treatment.

With the exception of one piece of Aurora, none of these are available on the Zwilling site, so they may all be discontinued. None of them are as good as Industry 5.

Here are the features of Demeyere Industry 5 cookware: