The All-Clad D3 10-piece set includes 8 and 10-inch fry pans, 2 and 3-quart saucepans with lids, a 3-quart sauté pan with lid, and an 8-quart stockpot with lid, built with All-Clad's tri-ply bonded construction. It's made in the USA at All-Clad's Pennsylvania factory and comes with a lifetime warranty.
17 mentions · 5 threadslast mention Apr 2024
Real comments from Reddit, linked to the original thread. Nothing paraphrased.
We get home only to realize it wasn’t the D3 set she was looking at, at $699 but a mislabeled D5 set in brushed steel that retails $899. Heck of a deal for $410 off! ... She’s been happy as a clam ever since and can’t wait to learn the tricks of stainless steel cooking coming from non stick and cast iron.
Get the D3. America's test kitchen tested both and there wasn't really any benefit to the D5 and it costs more.
I just snagged the All Clad 7 piece set for $299 on sale. ... I do like the pieces better in the all clad set more than the Goldilocks set but as a home cook I think both sets can get the job done for me.
Invest in some “barkeepers friend” to clean any oil burns or scorch stains. That s**t is literally magic for stainless steel cookware.
d3 can subtly warp over time a bit if you use it high heat. d5 is much less likely to warp.
I paid much more than this for a comparable sized set more than 10 years ago. Hell yes, go for it.
:p BKF is so good on stainless!
What I like to do is when I’m getting close to done with prep putting the pan over the lowest flame to let it preheat, then raise it to your cooking temp and add oil. If you get pulled away for a minute it won’t over heat but helps make sure the pan isn’t too cold either, it’s very non fussy way of getting a good result in my experience
I've been buying the [Tramontina Tri-Ply Clad](https://www.tramontina.com/kitchen---dining/cookware?filter_237=Tri-Ply%20Clad%20Construction) pieces recently and it is damn good cookware for the price.
Definitely not pristine, but these things are going to get heavily used — happy to have those initial scuffs out of the way already.
Went from gas to induction and only then did I notice the bottom of both my fry pans was not as even as I had thought. A minor annoyance at best, it does not impact their ability to cook food.
I’ve gotten tons of individual pans there for a fraction of retail. They have a d3 set right now for $600 with packaging damage (pans are firsts quality) if you’re set on getting a set and that’s more in your budget- I have a mix of d3 and d5 pans, and both perform great.
All clad is great but I wouldn’t buy a set. You’ll settle on using one or two pans and the rest will sit.
I can’t think of another pan that holds up as well as all-clad. I even splurged on their baking sheets because I was sick of the all the others looking like sh*t after a year.
My all-clad has been going in the dishwasher for 20 years and still looks amazing. Sometimes elbow grease is needed to get off the stubborn stuff, so a quick prescrub might happen.
There is an almost monthly factory seconds sale that you can get virtually indistinguishable all-clads for cheap. Plus you can then piece together the pieces of a set that match your needs.
I have a bunch of all clad and a bunch of tramontina tri-ply clad. The tramontina performs exactly as well as the all clad, and in some cases better. I also strongly prefer the tramontina handles.
**Owners report this set outlasting cookware bought for twice the price years earlier**, with the tri-ply build holding up over long stretches of daily use. The recurring comparison on forums is D3 versus its pricier sibling D5, and cooks who've tested both — including one citing America's Test Kitchen — land on D3 as the smarter buy since the extra cost of D5 doesn't translate into better cooking results. That said, a real tension shows up in the wall: a couple of owners flag that D3 can subtly warp under high heat over time, and one noticed the fry pan bottoms weren't perfectly flat only after switching to induction, though both describe it as a minor issue that doesn't affect cooking. **This is reported as a buy for someone who wants a heavy-duty, decades-lasting set at a lower cost than All-Clad's top tier**, not for an induction-only cook chasing perfectly flat cookware or someone unwilling to babysit heat levels.