Knowledge Base > Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

This event was on Tuesday, October 28, 2025 at 11:00 am Pacific, 2:00 pm Eastern

Join Chef Dan Marek in his virtual office as he welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to Ask Anything – from cooking techniques to cours… Read More.

Recorded

Question:

Just curious Dan if you and other associates are interested in or have purchased the Our Place Titanium Pro non-stick pan, and believe in the legitimacy of it being the most non-toxic pan of it's kind?

— Mark Rappaport

Answer:

I've gone through so many different non-stick pans, to tell you the truth. The last ones I bought, um, were the hex clad pans. And you know, quite honestly, for the money for 'em, I wouldn't buy them again. Um, it's, uh, okay pan but high heat, it's gonna stick. Things are gonna stick to it anyways. Um, my best advice for a non-stick pan, um, is, you know, I typically, if you're gonna spend a lot of money on something, I would just get a, like a, a stainless steel pan or um, uh, cast iron pan. It's probably one of the areas that I'd probably, if you're gonna put your money into something, I'd go into one of those areas. Um, the non-stick platforms right now are very competitive, but they're also, um, uh, there's a lot of, uh, talk about them with not the best of performance on each one of them. I don't know anything about r place, titanium pro non-stick pans. Um, but, uh, the ones that I have been using that are kind of the higher level have been kind of hit or miss. I do have to say I've been using some Heston pans lately that are the Thomas Keller on non-stick ones. Those, I mean, blew my mind. I was surprised at how well they worked, but they're also unbelievably expensive just for a small pan. Um, so my old rule is that I always kind of go to a kiss, uh, restaurant supply store and get a small, um, non-stick pan that you would use in most restaurants basically. And I use that and as soon as I see a small scratch on it, I get rid of it and recycle it. So I'll typically keep, keep that Pam for maybe six months to a year, but I've only spent maybe $20 or something on it. Um, and the reason I do that is because non-stick surfaces typically are really not good for you once they've, um, you know, once the product starts kind of coming off, uh, the non-stick surface comes off a little bit and they're quite dangerous. Um, so anytime I see a scratch on the pan, I usually get rid of them. Um, the newest version with all these hex clads and the, you know, that design you see, which is basically a stainless steel kind of hexagram and then a, the non-stick surface stuff sprayed between it work. Okay. But I haven't seen one that's like fantastic. And I mean, they'll show you in stores and stuff like that where they're like, oh, like, you know, I can put an egg on there and then blow the egg off of it. It's a little bit of trickery because they're doing an unbelievably low heat, basically. Well, well, well greased basically too. Um, and, uh, for like a workhorse at home, um, I haven't found one that I've actually been really super happy with. Uh, so typically I'm gonna stick with the steel or the, uh, um, the cast iron for recommendations for something like that. If you can afford to go with like the, you know, Heston non-stick and stuff like that. Great. Fantastic. Uh, but beyond that, I can't really tell you too much hope that helped a little bit.
Dan Marek

Dan Marek

Director of Plant-Based Culinary & Dev

rouxbe.com