Gordon Ramsay Cookware: What Brands He Actually Uses

Gordon Ramsay cookware, in the sense of the pans Ramsay himself uses and puts his name to, is HexClad: the hybrid stainless-over-nonstick brand he joined as lead ambassador in July 2021 and now part-owns. Before HexClad, the nonstick on his MasterClass list of kitchen tools was ScanPan, and that Danish brand has also turned up on MasterChef. The pans sold under the Hell's Kitchen name are a different product again, a hybrid line licensed from the show's producers rather than from Ramsay. This guide answers what cookware Gordon Ramsay uses brand by brand, whether he owns HexClad, how a hexagon-etched hybrid surface sears and releases at the same time, and how the HexClad 12-inch, 6-piece and 13-piece options compare with the Hell's Kitchen 5-piece set and a cast iron skillet, then covers the PFAS lawsuit, Costco, whether anything is discontinued, and care.

It belongs to the site's kitchen gear guides and pairs with two HexClad companions, where to buy HexClad cookware and is HexClad made in the USA. If your question is the single pan rather than the brand, what frying pan Gordon Ramsay uses has its own answer, and the Gordon Ramsay knives guide covers the HexClad, Wüsthof and Henckels knives he is seen with.

Cookware	Build	Cooking surface	Oven	Best for
HexClad 12-Inch Hybrid Pan	Tri-ply, aluminum core, magnetic stainless base	Stainless hexagon peaks over TerraBond ceramic	900°F	The one pan to start with
HexClad 6-Piece Fry Pan Set	Same tri-ply hybrid	8-, 10- and 12-inch pans, glass lids	900°F (lids 400°F)	A full frying kit
HexClad 13-Piece Set	Same tri-ply hybrid	Pan, wok, 2-, 3- and 8-quart pots	900°F (lids 400°F)	Outfitting a whole kitchen
Hell's Kitchen 5-Piece Hybrid Set	Tri-clad stainless, aluminum core	Flame-pattern stainless over diamond-reinforced ceramic	900°F per the maker	The licensed look for less
Lodge 12-Inch Cast Iron	Solid cast iron	Seasoned iron, no coating	Any temperature	Heat retention and searing

The table splits into the two hybrid lines and the one pan that is not a hybrid at all, and the honest summary is that the two hybrids are built the same way and differ in the pattern etched into the steel, the ceramic under it and the name on the handle; the cast iron is there because it is what the hybrids are trying to imitate on the searing side.

What Brands of Cookware Does Gordon Ramsay Use?

Gordon Ramsay uses HexClad cookware at home and in the studio, and it is the only cookware brand he has a business stake in. The one other pan brand on the record is ScanPan, the nonstick his MasterClass tools list names. Everything else that carries his name or his show's name is either tableware or a licensed product he did not make.

Brand	What it is	Where Ramsay uses it	On the record
HexClad	Hybrid stainless-over-nonstick pans and pots	At home, in the studio, on Next Level Chef	Partner since 2021; part-owner
ScanPan	Danish nonstick cookware	His MasterClass, MasterChef	Named as his nonstick on the MasterClass tools list
Hell's Kitchen hybrid line	Licensed show-branded hybrid pans	No public record	Licensed from the show's producers, not from Ramsay
Royal Doulton Gordon Ramsay range	Plates, bowls, glassware	His tableware line	No pots or pans in it

HexClad is the answer with the paper trail. HexClad announced the partnership on PR Newswire on July 29, 2021, naming him lead ambassador with a hand in product development, branding and growth. HexClad's own Gordon Ramsay page quotes him saying the pans stand up to his demands at home and in the studio, and says the cookware features on Next Level Chef on Fox, in his Ramsay in 10 cookbook and at his London cooking academy. He said at the time that the pans had caught his eye a year earlier and that he was already cooking on them at home.

"HexClad's intriguing look and design, and its hybrid technology caught my eye about a year ago. I use the pans at home, and the combination of stainless steel and non-stick functionality is amazing."

Gordon Ramsay, in HexClad's July 2021 partnership announcement

ScanPan is the brand from before the partnership. MasterClass's write-up of Gordon Ramsay's kitchen tools list puts a nonstick pan first on the list and notes that Ramsay uses ScanPan, while saying any well-made pan with a solid, heavy bottom will do; the same list names Henckels knives and a Boos Block cutting board. Tasting Table reports he has used ScanPan on MasterChef as well as in the MasterClass series. ScanPan is made in Denmark from recycled aluminum with a layered nonstick finish, which puts it in the plain-nonstick camp rather than the hybrid one.

The Gordon Ramsay range at Royal Doulton is the one place his own name sits on kitchen goods, and it is dinnerware: the Maze and Bread Street plates, bowls and mugs and the Maze glassware, each drawn from one of his restaurants. It is what you serve on, not what you cook in, so if you see "Gordon Ramsay cookware" on a set of plates, that is the line.

What Ramsay teaches about pans is older than any of these brands and still the useful part. In his MasterClass cooking course he tells home cooks to spend on a few good tools, a heavy pan and a nonstick among them, rather than a showroom of gear, and his pan method does not change with the brand: the pan goes on first and the oil goes in when the pan is hot, protein is not added until it sizzles, and a sauce is built in the same pan afterward. A hybrid pan is a way of getting the heavy pan and the nonstick into one piece of metal, which is the whole pitch.

Does Gordon Ramsay Own HexClad?

Gordon Ramsay owns part of HexClad, not the whole company. He invested as an equity partner when the partnership began in 2021, and on July 16, 2024, HexClad announced a 100-million-dollar strategic investment from Studio Ramsay Global, his production partnership with Fox Entertainment, which expanded that ownership. The size of his stake has not been published.

The 2024 deal was a mix of cash and media commitments, and it is the reason HexClad keeps appearing on screen: the release describes HexClad as the official cookware sponsor across a wide range of FOX and Studio Ramsay Global food series. So when you see the hexagon pans on one of his Fox shows, that is a sponsor he co-owns, not a chance pick from the prop room. It also means his endorsement is a business interest, which is worth knowing when you weigh it, and is why this guide sets the hybrids next to a plain cast iron skillet.

How a Hybrid Pan Sears and Releases at the Same Time

The surface is a grid of raised stainless-steel hexagons laser-etched over a ceramic nonstick that sits in the recessed valleys between them, so food touches steel at the peaks and nonstick in the gaps. HexClad's science page describes the stack underneath: a magnetic stainless base so the pan works on induction, an aluminum core that spreads the heat, and a stainless cooking layer on top carrying the etched pattern. The peaks are what sear; the valleys are what let an egg slide. The trade is that the nonstick is only part of the surface, so a hybrid pan needs a little fat where a plain nonstick pan needs none, and the maker says as much in its care instructions.

The aluminum core is the reason a hybrid pan heats faster and more evenly than a plain stainless one, and the numbers explain it: aluminum conducts heat at roughly 205 watts per metre-kelvin against about 16 for stainless steel, per the Engineering ToolBox reference tables, so a burner's heat moves sideways through the aluminum layer about thirteen times as fast as it would through steel and reaches the edge of the pan before the centre has a chance to scorch. That is also why HexClad's FAQ says medium on a HexClad behaves like medium-high on other pans, and why the handles stay cooler: the handle is stainless, the poor conductor, so heat travels up it slowly.

Searing itself is a temperature threshold, not a pan feature. Browning, the Maillard reaction between amino acids and sugars, begins at about 284°F (140°C) on the food's surface, and a wet surface cannot get there because water holds it at 212°F (100°C) until the water is gone. A steak dries and browns on the steel peaks because steel holds and transfers heat well and the raised ridges concentrate contact, but no pan sears a wet steak. Pat it dry, get the pan properly hot, and the hexagons do the rest; the cast iron ribeye guide walks through the same threshold on iron.

HexClad 12-Inch Hybrid Pan: The One to Start With

The 12-inch hybrid pan is the HexClad most cooks buy first, and HexClad's product page gives the specification in full: tri-ply construction with an aluminum core, the laser-etched stainless hexagon surface over TerraBond ceramic nonstick, safe on gas, electric and induction, oven-safe to 900°F, metal-utensil safe, dishwasher safe with hand washing recommended, and a lifetime warranty. Twelve inches is the size for two steaks, four chicken thighs, a whole crispy-skin salmon side cut in portions, or a one-pan dinner; the 10-inch is the eggs-and-omelette pan.

Metal-utensil safe is the claim that separates a hybrid from ordinary nonstick, and the mechanism is simple geometry: the stainless peaks stand proud of the ceramic, so a spatula or whisk rides on steel and never scrapes the coating in the valleys. HexClad's FAQ is candid that a sharp utensil can still leave a cosmetic scratch on the steel; the coating underneath is protected, which is why the pans carry a lifetime warranty when most nonstick carries one or two years.

HexClad 6-Piece Fry Pan Set: A Full Frying Kit

The 6-piece set is three hybrid frying pans, 8-, 10- and 12-inch, each with a tempered glass lid, and it is the configuration that covers a household's frying, sautéing and simmering without buying pots. The build is identical to the single 12-inch: tri-ply aluminum core, hexagon peaks over TerraBond, induction ready, oven-safe to 900°F. The one figure to note is the lids: HexClad rates tempered glass lids to 400°F and stainless lids to 900°F, so a pan that goes under the broiler goes without its glass lid.

HexClad 13-Piece Set: Outfitting a Kitchen

The 13-piece set is the whole-kitchen purchase: a 12-inch pan, a 12-inch wok and a 12-inch lid, 2-, 3- and 8-quart pots with lids, plus two silicone trivets and two drying mats that pad the count. The pots are the same tri-ply hybrid construction as the pans, which matters less for a pot than a pan; a stockpot boils water and braises, where the nonstick surface is a cleaning convenience rather than a cooking one. The wok is the piece that earns its place, since the hexagon surface takes the metal wok spatula that ruins a coated wok. If the pots are not needed, the 6-piece pan set plus a good stainless stockpot costs less and does the same work.

Hell's Kitchen Cookware vs HexClad: Which Pans Are Ramsay's?

Hell's Kitchen cookware is not Gordon Ramsay's brand. The Hell's Kitchen Store sells a hybrid line under a licence for the show's name from its producers, ITV Studios, and Ramsay's cookware partnership is with HexClad; the two companies are unrelated. HexClad is the official cookware sponsor across FOX and Studio Ramsay Global food series, but neither Fox nor HexClad has published a pan list for the Hell's Kitchen set. The Hell's Kitchen hybrid pans are built on the same idea as HexClad, a tri-clad stainless body with an aluminum core and a laser-etched stainless pattern raised over a ceramic nonstick, but the pattern is a flame motif rather than hexagons and the ceramic is described as diamond-reinforced. The store rates the pans for all cooktops including induction, oven use to 900°F, metal utensils, and a lifetime warranty, and states the coating is made without PFAS, PTFE, PFOA, lead or cadmium. The 5-piece set is an 11-inch fry pan, a 4-quart sauté pan, a 7.5-quart pot and two 11-inch glass lids that fit all three.

Which to buy comes down to what the name is worth to you. The specifications are near-identical on paper, both makers claim the same 900°F oven limit, the same induction compatibility and the same lifetime warranty, and neither publishes a hardness or thickness figure that would separate them. HexClad is the pan Ramsay is on record cooking with and the one with the longer owner history, a settled lawsuit and a documented coating change behind it; the Hell's Kitchen set is the show's logo on a similar pan. The affordable cookware set guide covers the plain stainless and nonstick sets below both.

The Cast Iron Alternative: What the Hybrids Are Imitating

A hybrid pan is sold as stainless, nonstick and cast iron in one, and the cast iron part of that claim is the weakest, because what cast iron does is hold heat. A Lodge 12-inch skillet is far heavier than a hybrid pan, and heat capacity scales with mass: when a cold steak lands in it, the iron gives up a little of a large store of heat and barely drops in temperature, so the surface stays above the browning threshold and the crust forms in one go. A lighter tri-ply pan drops further at the same moment and recovers through its aluminum core, which is fast, but it is a different physics from retention. Cast iron conducts poorly, which is why it needs a long preheat and heats unevenly on a small burner, and why the cast iron ribeye method starts with ten minutes over the flame.

The seasoning on a Lodge is the original nonstick: layers of oil polymerised by heat into a hard, slick film, which improves with use and can be stripped and rebuilt, where a ceramic coating can only wear. It also cannot be put in a dishwasher and needs drying at once to keep from rusting. For a cook who wants one pan to sear steak, and the crispy skin salmon method works on it too, cast iron is the cheaper and more permanent answer; for a cook who wants eggs to slide and a dishwasher-safe pan, it is not, and that gap is what the hybrids fill.

The HexClad Lawsuit and What Is on the Pan Now

HexClad settled a class action in 2025 over how it had described its nonstick. The suit, reported by ClassAction.org and administered through the official settlement site, alleged that pans sold between February 2022 and March 2024 were marketed as non-toxic and PFAS-free while being coated with PTFE, which is itself a member of the PFAS family. HexClad denied wrongdoing, settled, and agreed to stop calling a product non-toxic, PFOA-free or PFAS-free if it contains PTFE or any PFAS chemical. The settlement received preliminary approval in April 2025.

The pans on sale now carry a different coating. HexClad's science page describes the current nonstick as TerraBond, a ceramic it states is PTFE-free and free from forever chemicals, and its FAQ repeats that the coating is PTFE-free and PFAS-free; the lawsuit concerned the earlier PTFE-based pans and their marketing, not the ceramic. For what PFAS are and why the term covers thousands of compounds, the EPA's PFAS explainer is the reference. The practical reading for a buyer is that a HexClad or Hell's Kitchen pan bought new today is a ceramic-coated hybrid, and that the honest claim for any ceramic nonstick is that it is made without PTFE, not that it will last as long as one.

Care: Heat Level, Seasoning and the Dishwasher

HexClad's care instructions ask for three things, and each has a reason. First, season the pan before first use: heat it on medium-low, wipe a teaspoon of vegetable oil around the interior, leave it two to three minutes, and let the fats from the first weeks of cooking finish the job. The oil bonds to the ceramic and the steel as a thin polymerised film, the same chemistry as cast iron seasoning, and it is what makes an egg release on a surface that is partly bare metal. Second, cook lower than you are used to: the aluminum core moves heat so quickly that medium on a HexClad matches medium-high on an ordinary pan, and high heat bakes fat onto the surface as burnt residue, which is the sticking most owners report. Third, hand wash. The pans are rated dishwasher safe, but HexClad's FAQ warns that dishwasher cycles dull and darken the steel over time and that phosphate-free detergents can etch it.

Stains and stuck-on residue have a fix that does not involve the coating: soak the pan in warm soapy water for ten to fifteen minutes and clean with a soft sponge, and if the sticking persists after long use, scrub the surface with a more abrasive pad and re-season it. Exposed stainless at the rim and on the base can discolour with heat, which is cosmetic; a scouring pad clears it as long as it stays off the cooking surface. HexClad's lifetime warranty covers the original buyer with proof of purchase and excludes damage from ignoring these instructions and any commercial use, so the care page is also the warranty's terms.

If you want…	Buy	Why
The pan Ramsay is on record using	HexClad 12-Inch Hybrid	The partnership pan, one size that does most jobs
Three frying pans and no pots	HexClad 6-Piece Fry Pan Set	8, 10 and 12 inches with lids
A whole kitchen in one box	HexClad 13-Piece Set	Pan, wok and three pots, hybrid throughout
The Hell's Kitchen name for less	Hell's Kitchen 5-Piece Hybrid Set	Same construction idea, flame pattern, licensed logo
The best sear and no coating to wear	Lodge 12-Inch Cast Iron	Heat retention from mass; seasoning that rebuilds

The last thing to know is what "Gordon Ramsay cookware" is not. It is not a line he manufactures, and it is not the Hell's Kitchen pans; it is HexClad, a brand he part-owns, with a settled lawsuit and a changed coating in its past and a pan that does what it says on the steel. Buy the 12-inch first, season it, cook on medium, and keep the cast iron for the nights a steak matters more than the washing up.

More HexClad and cookware guides: where to buy HexClad cookware, is HexClad made in the USA, and All-Clad stainless steel sets. Ramsay's knives: Gordon Ramsay knives.

Gordon Ramsay Cookware FAQs

The questions that come up most: what cookware Gordon Ramsay uses, whether he owns HexClad, whether he has his own cookware line, whether Hell's Kitchen pans and HexClad are the same, whether HexClad is worth it, what the HexClad lawsuit was about, whether Costco sells HexClad, whether HexClad is discontinued, and what Ramsay used before HexClad.

What cookware does Gordon Ramsay use?

HexClad, at home and in the studio. Ramsay became HexClad's lead ambassador in July 2021, and HexClad says its pans feature on Next Level Chef and in his cookbook and cooking academy. Before that, the nonstick on his MasterClass kitchen tools list was ScanPan, which he has also used on MasterChef.

Does Gordon Ramsay own HexClad?

Partly. He invested as an equity partner in 2021, and in July 2024 Studio Ramsay Global, his production partnership with Fox Entertainment, made a 100-million-dollar strategic investment in HexClad in cash and media commitments, expanding that ownership. The size of his stake has not been published, and HexClad is the official cookware sponsor across FOX and Studio Ramsay Global food series.

Does Gordon Ramsay have his own cookware line?

Not pots and pans under his own name. His cookware is the HexClad partnership, the Hell's Kitchen hybrid pans are licensed from the show's producers rather than from him, and the Gordon Ramsay range at Royal Doulton is dinnerware and glassware, not cookware.

Are Hell's Kitchen pans the same as HexClad?

No. Hell's Kitchen cookware is a hybrid line sold under a licence for the show's name from its producers, ITV Studios; HexClad is the brand Ramsay partnered with. Both are tri-clad stainless with an aluminum core and a laser-etched stainless pattern over a ceramic nonstick, but the Hell's Kitchen pattern is a flame motif, its ceramic is described as diamond-reinforced, and the two companies are unrelated.

Is Gordon Ramsay's HexClad cookware worth it?

For a cook who wants one pan that sears on steel and releases eggs, takes metal utensils and goes in the dishwasher, the hybrid does that and carries a lifetime warranty. For a cook who mainly sears, a cast iron skillet holds heat better for far less; for a cook who mainly wants eggs to slide, a plain nonstick releases better because its whole surface is coated. The hybrid is a compromise pan, and a good one.

What was the HexClad lawsuit about?

A class action alleged that HexClad pans sold between February 2022 and March 2024 were marketed as non-toxic and PFAS-free while coated with PTFE, a PFAS. HexClad denied wrongdoing and settled in 2025, agreeing not to call a product PFAS-free or non-toxic if it contains PTFE. The pans now sold use HexClad's TerraBond ceramic, which the company states is PTFE-free and PFAS-free, with a stainless steel raised cooking surface.

Does Costco sell HexClad?

Yes. Costco lists HexClad sets and single pans online, including a 7-piece set and a 14-inch hybrid pan, and carries HexClad in many warehouses, sometimes as a roadshow event. The where-to-buy guide on this site covers the other retailers.

Is HexClad discontinued?

No. HexClad sells its full hybrid line on hexclad.com, Amazon and Costco. Individual older listings do get retired as sets change and as the coating moved from the earlier PTFE nonstick to TerraBond ceramic, which is why an old Amazon listing can show as unavailable while the current version is in stock.

What did Gordon Ramsay use before HexClad?

ScanPan. MasterClass's list of his kitchen tools names ScanPan as his nonstick pan while saying any well-made pan with a solid, heavy bottom will do, and Tasting Table reports he has used ScanPan on MasterChef. His advice in the course is to buy a few good tools rather than many.