Bourgeat 062007 Black Steel Round Frying Pan, 14 1/8-Inch, Gray

Because of fears about PTFE/ TEFLON poisoning, we threw them all out and were SUPER EXCITED to buy here a Matfer Bourgeat 062004 Black Steel Round Frying Pan, 11-Inch, Gray back in September 2023—this allayed our fears about poisoning and while not cheap we thought it should last forever. However the French Government have made Amazon send out product recall notices over fears that they are leaching harmful chemicals, including arsenic into food. Nevertheless Matfer and resellers are not on board. Our reseller has vanished. We can't use the pan and can't return it either, so it's a financial hit. Don't take my word for this, please check the internet for details, including Reddit threads. HEALTH & SAFETY FIRST!

Matfer issued communiqué acknowledging that a "the recall and cessation of sales" has been "mandated by our local consumer protection authorities" in France. However, it seems that Matfer and their UK counterparts do not like complying with obligations and caring for their customers, as they're not allowing refunds to proceed. If Matfer is unhappy with the interpretation of local authorities, that's their problem. It is clear from the communication that Matfer itself shared that (i) a recall has been issued by a competent authority regarding this product and (ii) that Amazon has acknowledged that. Really astounding - never buying from them ever again.

Got an email regarding a recall due to ARSENIC leaking from the pan. The seller refuses to engage and refund. This is unacceptable. The product is not only defective but dangerous to heatlh

WBK LTD completely ignored a recall order and were rude and dismissive towards me. Also the edges of this pan are quite sharp and actually cut me when initially washing it. Not a good pan, don't buy this.

Read about carbon steel pans in Cook's Illustrated. Sounded like something to try. Got this pan (should have gotten smaller, and will) to test it out. Yep, it is heavy. Not as heavy as the same size cast iron, but a lot more than the non-stick Cook's Essentials Anodized Aluminum. First it needs to be seasoned, and not like you would a cast iron pan. The directions that come with it are iffy, almost badly translated French. So, I will add here the directions from Cook's Illustrated and hope they weren't copyrighted. First though, the pan and using it. Very nice, cooks great. Really is non stick after seasoning and clean up is a swipe. Going to have to get used to that. Seared the steaks perfectly and finished the cream sauce without at hitch. Yep, gotta get you some. INITIAL SEASONING: First you'll need to remove the new pan's wax or grease coating (used to protect the metal from rusting in transit). Use very hot water, dish soap, and vigorous scrubbing with a bristle brush. Dry the pan and then put in on low heat to finish drying. Add 1/3 cup oil, 2/3 cup salt, and peels from two potatoes (these help to pull any remaining wax or grease from the pan surface). Cook over medium heat, occasionally moving the peels around the pan and up the sides to the rim, for 8 to 10 minutes. (The pan will turn brown) Discard the contents, allow the pan to cool, and wipe with paper towels. You are ready to cook. (If you experience sticking, repeat once. This method will work on any carbon-steel skillet.) MAINTENANCE: Avoid soap and abrasive scrubbing. Simply wipe or rinse the pan clean, dry it thoroughly on a warm burner, and rub it with a light coat of oil. If you accidentally scrub off some of the patina, wipe the pan with a thin coat of oil and place it over high heat for about 10 minutes until the pan darkens ( it will smoke; turn on an exhaust fan). BLOTCHY IS OK: As soon as you season and start cooking in a carbon-steel pan, it changes from shiny silver to brown and blotchy. The blotches are a sign that the pan is building up a slippery patina, which will help it become increasingly nonstick. The blotches and nonstick capability may initially wax and wan, but with use, the pan's cooking surface will gradually darken and become more uniform in color.

Just cooked first breakfast on a new 15.75 incher. My impressions. First, it's big. I wanted something bigger than my vintage 12 inch cast iron for cooking big batches of veggies and bunches of burgers for the fam. To get a bigger bottom surface area, went with the 15. It's 2 pounds heavier than a #12 cast iron. The pan is thick and the handle is almost comically well built. The 15.75 is way too big for a standard oven, which is fine for my purposes. I cook on a powerful bluestar range with 25k btu burner. I wouldn't go bigger than this size for sure. On a regular range, I have to believe this wouldn't heat evenly on the edges. The 14 would probably fit better on a bluestar with less overhang but I wanted the extra space. This pan and size would probably be good for a drive in campfire cook. High sides, lots of room, big handle. I talk about the seasoning. The instructions on the sticker are deceptive in how easy they make it sound to clean the factory coating off. Warm water and detergent with a brissle brush won't do it. I worked hard on it and the coating just started scratching after 15 minutes. I saw various places people say to use easy-off oven cleaner outside to avoid fumes. Tried it and have to say this is my new method. Sprayed it on and left it in a garbage bag for a couple hours. It still took hard scrubbing but it progressed pretty quick and could easily see where there was and wasn't coating. The effort after easy-off was like what I thought it should have been out of the box. Then I seasoned with canola oil cause that's what I had. Held it over the huge burner till each section smoked. It looked and felt perfect. I would have done this in the oven for a smaller pan. Even with 25k btu, it took a while to get each area to smoke. It's a thick pan. Don't know if the smaller pans are thinner. Weight. The 15.75 is very heavy. I'm a beefcake with strong arms that has no problem one handing a full 12 inch cast iron. This thing is a 2 hander all day. It's very long handle to the far opposite side. The bottom half the handle gets hot. The top half seemed to stay cool. I have a long history with cast iron. Have a bunch of vintage griswold pans of various sizes. Cooked 1000s of meals in CI. My wife has a carbon steel crepe pan and I started messing with it for eggs and I was like, what's this? Seemed light and very non-stick. I've wanted something bigger than a #12 cast iron for bigger meals. So after a bunch of research, I ended up with this 15.75 to get a bigger bottom surface than a #12. I think the 15.75 is maybe an inch wider at the bottom, which is quite a bit more in area when you do the math. My overall impression of cast iron vs carbon steel is carbon steel is easier to clean. Feels a bit more non-stick. I like that I can run a hot/warm carbon steel pan under water. Don't do that with CI. I cracked a vintage CI pan doing that. I like the longer handles. This newer matfer has the convex bottom which I'm not a fan of. On gas, the oil runs to the outside. It's not terrible, just less than perfect. Temperature IR tests. Did a simple heat comparison with an IR gun between a griswold #12 and the 15.75 matfer. From each pan completely cold, tested each pan every minute on the middle and the outside edge running full blast on the 25k burner each minute. I expected the matfer to be faster to climb. I was surprised. Results (middle of pan and outside edge): #12 Griswold @ 1 min: 370 mid, 288 outside. 2 min: 570 mid, 490 outside. 15.75 Matfer @ 1 min: 200 mid, 168 out. 2 min: 340 mid, 235 out. 3 min: 410 mid, 288 out. 4 min: 460 mid, 330 out. Then after the test about 3-5 minutes, didn't measure closely, the #12 was still 330 degrees. The matfer was 160 ish. Matfer had more time to cool as it was tested first. CI definitely holds heat. These are different shaped pans and not really and apple to apple but I expected quicker heats up on the matfer as that's one of its selling points. The CI was blazing in a couple minutes. Not saying that makes it better. That pan does tend to get and stay too hot. The 25k is a monster and I can't imagine how long a 12 or 15k typical burner would take on this pan. Wouldn't be good at all for searing steaks, anything high heat. Just throwing that out if anyone with a regular gas burner is thinking of going this big. I can't speak for induction or electric. Outside cooking on a bayou burner would be a good fit probably. After seasoning, cooked sunny side up eggs and they came out perfect. As non-stick as I expected. Probably a hair more non-stick than the cast iron. Clean up seemed easier. All in all, I'm impressed. I think 15.75 is too big probably even for a bluestar range but is workable. Great quality pan. I'll be picking up some other sizes and will sideline some CI pans other than for searing.

Great Pan. Bought a 14 inch one for christmas. Works great but you have to be careful with them. Heat this pan up slowly. We had to return the first one we received because it warped. I suspect it warped due to a hot element on the stove and a cold frying pan. it did not heat up evenly. Since we have had 2 in a short amount of time we used 2 methods of removing the factory coating. The first pan we used boiling water, soap, scrub brush and Steel wool (SOS pad). It took 2-2.5 hours and the results were not very good. Could have spent more time and got all of it off but got frustrated and left the sealant on the outside lip and handle. The second pan, we used Easy Off oven cleaner. We sprayed it down and put it in a plastic garbage bag over night. In the morning, the sealant came off like snake skin and took about 5 minutes to clean it up. The handle and the outside lip of the pan took a second treatment because it is a rough surface and the sealant gets into all the nooks and pits. Spayed down these surfaces and left it for another 2 hours to soak in. Came off clean with a copper scrubber. If you want this frying pan.... save yourself the head ache and frustration.... just pick up some easy off oven cleaner. The instructions to clean the factory sealant from the manufacturer will leave you cursing and swearing for hours. The sealant is more like lacquer than wax or cosmolene. Will update after it is seasoned, black, and beautiful.

FACTORY OIL/WAX COATING: First, let's discuss the factory coating used to protect the bare iron from rusting -- it is true it will show rust within 10 minutes if moist and not coated with protectant (oil or wax or both) I had received the 8 5/8" Matfer crepe pan last week and liked it so I ordered this one as a sort of combo 4 steaks at once/ stir fry pan. I kept reading in reviews here about steel wool, rotary sanders, etc. to remove the factory protective coating, and I'm thinking ... that's nuts. I didn't do more than hot water and a dish brush to clean my 8 5/8" last week. I WAS WRONG. I had NOT removed the factory coating at all by just washing it with a brush. I found that out by deciding to make sure I removed the factory wax on this 14 1/8". I started by boiling 6 gallons of water, then dumping them into a medium sized stainless sink. Then put the pan in to soak as some posters have noted. I didn't have powdered laundry detergent, so just used Dawn (possibly a mistake... should have bought powdered Tide). That's when I noticed that tiny bit of the bare metal that I had exposed with the brush looks a lot shinier and more aluminum foil like that my 8 5/8" ever looked after it's initial washing. I had NOT removed the coating on the 8 5/8" but thought I had. Long story short, I then tried the rough half of a dish sponge, and barely removed any wax (now almost amber colored wax because it's very hot). Luckily I painted the house last year so I had both steel wool #3, and a brass wire brush used to scrape off old paint when repaint outside railings. The brass wire brush is what worked. Steel wool wasn't strong enough. Why the company ships pans that require brass wire brushes and a sink full of boiling water is a mystery to me. Since De Buyer also does that, and presumably Monfiel also, it must be how carbon steel pans have to be protected for international shipping. Anyway, with the 8 5/8", I used avocado oil about six times to try to pass the egg test, without success. On the 7th try, I had to take a phone call and forgot it was on the burner... till 15 minutes later I can smell it. the pan had become pure light silver it was so hot. It was 10 minutes of heating on high burner past the avocado oil 520F smoking point. That's when I think the original factory wax burned off. Funny when it had cooled off it started looking dark gray/black again. Weird. I can pass the egg test now. 14 1/8" SIZE with 12" HANDLE: TI am not sure many home gas stoves (this size is not good for induction as they warp, and only work with electric if never put above medium heat) have burners wide enough to reach the edges of this pan for even heating. You'd need a star shaped large burner like only professional ranges have. So, if you buy this size, just know the center 9" of the 11" flat surface will be hotter than the outer 1", which will be a lot cooler than the flared sides of this pan. You can fix this by moving the pan a little every minute or so but that keeps you glued to the range. Or of course it would work on a camp fire or in a barbeque with it's lid closed. it actually works perfectly as a wok, which is designed to have a much hotter center than sides. For my 4 steaks at once purpose, it will work fine. Also the handle is a FOOT long! Luckily it fits in my 30# oven, and in the drawer if I put it in on a diagonal.

First off, after reading the many reviews about how this pan is not as big as advertised I thought I would need the 17" to get the size I wanted. Big mistake. The outer diameter on that unit is huge. It took up half my stove top space overlapping two burners. My stovetop is typical size. So I exchanged it for the 14" which has about 10.5" of cooking space. My 12" pans have just under 12" cooking space for comparison. So this pan takes up a lot of room for the relatively small cooking area if offers. Additionally, the handle is extremely long. So much so that even this smaller size pan will not fit in my oven. Not only is the handle long, but it is heavy and tends to weight down one side of the pan so it tilts on the burner and drains the fluid ingredients to one side and creates uneven cooking because the ingredients do not stay centered (unless the pan is full) and because one side of the pan is not touching the burner as well as the other. Additionally, the single layer, iron bottom does not distribute heat well, adding to the uneven cooking surface issues. This pan would benefit greatly from an added layer of copper or some other heat distributing layer like most other high quality pans use. The added weight on the bottom would also help prevent the tipping from the heavy handle. This pan could also be improved by shortening the handle and adding a small assist handle on the opposite side. It is heavy, with lots of iron in the construction so it needs two handles. So why does it get 4 stars? Because it does what it says. It is a healthy alternative for those of us who want a non-stick pan without the toxins found in non-stick coatings (don't be fooled by claims of safety. they all say that). Does this pan work like coated pans? No. But it's better then traditional iron pans, and even if you get lazy on your seasoning (employing the non stick process) it is still quite forgiving and easy to clean. This pan has the potential to be great. Right now it's a solid 3.5 stars but that is not an option so it got a 4 because it's definitely not a 3. Straighter sides for a larger cooking surface with smaller overall footprint. A nice layer of copper or similar for better heat distribution across the bottom. A shorter main handle and an assist handle on opposite sides would make this a truly great addition to any kitchen. UPDATE: Changed from 4 star to 3 star. The bottom of this pan has warped badly and rocks back and fourth on the burner like a teeter totter. BUT, it still remains non-stick without the unsafe coatings of the so called "safe" non stick alternatives. I continue to be impressed by this pans ability to cook anything without sticking. Far better then my standard cast iron skillets. I repeat my above recommendation to multi-clad the bottom of this pan. With better resistance to warping and more even heat distribution, this pan will be a world beater.