DE BUYEROmelette Pan, 24 cm, Silver

I’ve had a Sunnex carbon steel for a few years and it’s been good for certain things like crispy fried eggs, home fries, stir fry’s and shallow frying. I’ve cooked steak on it but have to remove from pan and let the temp come back up as it’s only 1mm thick so wouldn’t retain heat. Burgers would come out nicely crusted on one side and stewed the other.People often change from non stick to carbon steel because of the perceived risks of Teflon. The truth is I think there’s a place in the kitchen for both, in fact they are both a necessity for me. My pan collection now includes 2 carbon steel pans, 1 carbon steel wok, 1 stainless steel pan and 1 non stick pan. The non stick is only used to cook scrambled eggs in butter using a silicone spatula in low heat making the best scrambled eggs and potentially allowing the pan to last many years more than most non stick pans. Provided I don’t accidentally scratch the surface it could last my whole life. The stainless steel is a specialist pan for dishes that involve using the fond that develops from cooking proteins such as pan sauces plus anything acidic such as heavy tomato based dishes.For frying stuff, nothing beats carbon steel. My brother had a cast iron skillet but the weight made it very inconvenient to use for the whole family and having had a small carbon steel pan in the family for over 30 years, I knew this was the way to go.I finally got this de Buyer and I wish I bought it years ago. The seasoning it would have built up by now would be perfect. As you can see from the pics, it seasoned up really well. I did the obligatory egg test and it flew around the pan. Temperature control will take getting used to as it retains so much heat you could practically fry an egg almost all the way through off the residual heat from the pan.This pan, like most carbon steel pans, will outlive me and be passed on through future generations of my family. I can’t recommend this enough. It’s probably not for everyone as most get by with a non stick pan for most day to day light cooking but for people who want to cook restaurant quality food at home, know that the right tool matters.

If used in the conventional way it is faultless wonderfully made and you can feel it will last for generations, however I have had to use it in an unconventional way such as sorting out the husband (like in Andy Cap) very effective as a persuader when he rolls in worse for wear. A little heavy for flattening flies as one has a tendency to break windows.

Very good pan for frying at higher temperature. It’s a serious quality and I’m surprised the price is not higher. It’s a professional product so don’t expect anything less. It’s heavy, robust and needs looking after. Season it properly and use only water to clean it and make sure you oil it lightly after use. A previous reviewer said it rusted, but it won’t if you look after it. This a pan for life and is a better non stick than any coated pan or aluminium. These pans (and have 4 le creuset fry pans) are fine for medium heat cooking, but they aren’t designed for cooking at high heat, which these De Buyer pans are.I’ll be buying more of these beauties.

Lovely pan, good weight, good size for dingke 1 portion omelette.. wish I'd bought the bigger one.Struggling to season it but never dine it before.I have induction and it's hard to season on induction.

This is a really nice frying pan but I wasn't prepared for how heavy it was, I should of realised as this is cast iron saying this I do use it, it does give instructions how to season it on the packaging, but I had to look on utube so I could make sure I was doing it properly, I did find this so easy to use but it gets very hot fast, so if you get this be careful, as I am only in a small house and I did a steak once to see how it cooked and it created so much smoke it set the smoke alarms off, so it was panic mode trying to wave the smoke away, so now when I use it I tend to put a lid on and keep the gas low, but it does cook steaks great

This is perfect for omelettes: it is the only pan I've used that has the right shape, the right size (for a 2 egg omelette) and the right weight - heavy enough to have really good heat retaining properties, but not too heavy to handle easily. The advantage it has over non-stick (apart from being just nicer) is that you can whack the heat up to maximum and sear things properly at high temperature without worrying about ruining the coating. And if you do ruin the coating, you just scrub it off and put a new one on.However you have to be aware of some unavoidable facts about this type of pan:- it needs to be seasoned properly to work and the seasoning needs to be looked after.- once it is seasoned it will be dark brown or black, not like the nice shiny thing in the picture (De Buyer have a picture of a seasoned pan on their website).- it is only useful for cooking certain types of thing - basically anything acidic is out, which includes onions and tomatoes. So it's great for omelettes and pancakes, and also for flash frying meat or fish, but don't expect to use it as your only frying pan.- it is made of iron and therefore will rust very quickly if it is left wet, or with acidic food stuck to it. If the rust is bad, the surface will be pitted, which basically ruins it. It's only worth buying if you are going to use it regularly: if stuck in a cupboard for a year, it will probably rust.

Despite being a qualified chef and using pans for over 20 years, and following all the seasoning instructions, this pan rusted within a week. And this was used on an indiction hob. Pan was dried immediately after use.I’ve used De Buyer pans often before, this one just didn't seem up to the standards i’m used to.