Hestan’s NanoBond™ Technology – The Crème de la Crème in Cookware or Just Another Marketing Ploy?

For the Shokunin in Japan, craftsmen who specialize to an extraordinary degree to be masters of their profession, the search for excellence and even for perfection is a never-ending journey. 

Ninety-one year old Jiro Ono is Japan’s highest expression of Shokunin; he has worked tirelessly from the age of 7 to become the greatest sushi craftsman alive today. Ono is still to be found at his sushi counter at Ginza station, serving up perfect morsels of vinegared rice, yet his drive for perfection is far from finished.

Reading about Hestan’s founder Stanley K Cheng in Napa Valley USA, I found a lot of resonance with the work of Jiro Ono and hundreds of other Shokunin I have encountered in Japan and across the world.

Cheng’s lifelong quest has been to innovate and excel in the cookware industry. Since the 1970s, he has been at the cutting edge of his field, including the introduction of non-stick surfaces to hard anodized aluminium, the breakthrough which led to non-stick cookware. Today, his company (Hestan and Meyer Corporation) is the largest cookware distributor in the USA and the second largest in the world. 

Cheng has created a culture of excellence around the Hestan name that goes far beyond its cookware. There is the Hestan Vineyards in Napa Valley, as well as Hestan Commercial and Hestan Outdoor cooking appliances. Hestan Commercial reinvented the restaurant kitchen with a lineup of well-designed commercial cooking equipment, one of their most notable advocates is Head Chef and Shokunin Thomas Keller of the 3 Michelin-starred restaurant The French Laundry.

Most intriguing for me though is the Hestan Barn, a culinary “think tank” and laboratory that brings together a team of outstanding chefs, engineers, designers and winemakers to revolutionise cookware and think of different ways to cook.  It was here in the Hestan Barn that the USA team trained for the most prestigious international cookery competition, the Bocuse d’Or, winning the gold medal in 2017. 



It was also here at The Barn that Stanley Cheng and his team developed a new cookware range with Hestan’s NanoBond™ technology.

With 14 global patents, NanoBond technology uses a triple-bonded construction: thousands of titanium-based nano layers bonded directly to stainless steel, itself wrapped around a central core of pure aluminium.

The resulting super-dense cooking surface is said to be stain and scratch-resistant, and the titanium coating to last a lifetime. It does not use any chemicals or coatings that might wear off over time like what happens with standard non-stick pans.

Pans with NanoBond™ technology are also said to have 35% better heat conductivity and to be 400% (four times) harder than stainless steel pans. They certainly have a gorgeous design, with elegant ergonomic handles and flush rivets.

Besides this, Hestan states that their NanoBond™ technology results in pans that:
- are ‘stick resistant’ rather than non-stick 
- maintain their titanium lustre and beauty for a lifetime
- have no limit to the heat they can withstand
- do not affect or react with foods
- are easy to clean
- are highly resistant to oxidation at high heat
- have five times the lifespan of a normal stainless steel or aluminium-clad cookware. 

Launched in the USA in January 2017, the NanoBond™ range is sold exclusively there by Sonoma-Williams, and in the UK, you will only find it at Harrods, where it was launched in September 2017. 

I was approached by Hestan to put some of their claims to the test with four of the range of pans, and have been doing just that over the last five months. The Hestan pans I used for this review included:

28cm frying pan - £269 - https://www.harrods.com/en-gb/hestan/frying-pan-28cm-p000000000005730165?bcid=1504779447433

20cm saucepan with lid - £299 - https://www.harrods.com/en-gb/hestan/covered-soup-pot-20cm-p000000000005730181?bcid=1504779447433

26cm stockpot with lid - £449 - https://www.harrods.com/en-gb/hestan/stockpot-and-lid-26cm-p000000000005730180?bcid=1504779447433

36cm wok - £499 - https://www.harrods.com/en-gb/hestan/frying-pan-28cm-p000000000005730165?bcid=1504779447433

First Impressions Count

The pans feel really sturdy and solid, substantial without being too heavy. On closer inspection, the design is beautiful with a pewter-grey tinge to the surface. The surfaces are silky smooth, and even the rivets binding the handles to the pan are recessed to avoid food getting stuck and making them very easy to clean.

The handles are ergonomically designed from case stainless steel, being wide and flat to enable a good grip without risking them over-turning. 

The Hestan logo is beautiful, written in full at the base of the handle, and with an embossed H at the tip.  Frying pans and saucepans have an oval slot in case you want to suspend them from a hook, or alternatively they stack efficiently.

Performance under Pressure

During my time at Le Cordon Bleu, I got to use and was impressed by top quality cookware from the American firm All Clad, and by de Buyer from France. Top professional kitchens around the world will be familiar with these, as they have been considered to be the best of their type and to deliver consistent cooking results.  Hestan's is, however, aiming to raise the bar by introducing its NanoBond™ technology to their pots and pans.

Today at my supper club events and cookery classes, my Hestan pans get heavy use and are bashed around a lot. Even though I do not have Le Cordon Bleu’s budget, I have always looked out for cookware that is well made, and of as good quality as I can afford.

Beautiful as new after 5 months use!

The Hestan pans I have used over the last five months still look nearly as perfect as they did when I first came out of their boxes. Though they have not been scratched or dented, I noted some colour tarnish at the bottom of the pans.

Light colour tarnish

Stick Resistance

From my years of cooking experience, I know that fried food does not stick if the pan has either a non-stick coating or if it has been proofed with a built up layer of oil and salt over time.

Although not completely non-stick, I found that Hestan’s 28 cm frying pan’s surface was indeed ‘stick resistant’, and this did not wear off over time, as non-stick coatings do sooner or later in my experience.

The Dreaded Non-Stick Egg Frying Test

Though there were some desirable signs of food caramelization visible on the surface of the pan, food did not stick. There was rapid heat conduction on either my Aga hot plate or a conventional gas flame, and even fried eggs cooked uniformly and came away smoothly from the pan.

Image courtesy of Hestan

Heat Conductivity and Evenness 

But for me, the major advantage of the Hestan pans was the evenness of heat distribution and the rapid conductivity of heat. Don’t you hate it when you are cooking something and parts get burned while other areas are still not cooked?

Image courtesy of Hestan

This was definitely not the case with Hestan’s 36cm wok – with no limit to high heat and improved conductivity compared with other standard pans, Hestan’s wok quickly achieved searingly high heat, just ideal for imparting that desirable ‘wok-breath’ (a wonderful charred flavour) into my stir-fried food.

Versatility – From Hob to Oven and Table

Hestan’s range of pans are all metal, with no plastic, rubber or other materials, making them ideal for use in the oven as well as on stove. In many professional kitchens, steaks and other meats are usually caramelized in the pan over a high flame (pan-fried), and then finished in the oven to complete their cooking under an even heat.  Hestan’s range are well designed for this purpose, while looking great on the table too.

Image courtesy of Hestan

The Verdict

Over the five months I have used Hestan’s pots and pans at home and at my supper club events, I have been reassured that the company’s claims really do stack up. With great heat conductivity and evenness, the pans are also durable and will probably last many years. They are sturdy, well-designed and gorgeous too.

A decent, well-designed pan can make or break your meal. Choosing the correct vessel (for both its quality and size) to cook a dish is an important decision that will help you make the most of your cooking. With busy working lives and less time now spent in the kitchen, pans like Hestan’s will make this time count giving you consistently good cooking results.

Image courtesy of Hestan

Hestan pans are not cheap, but good quality equipment never is. If you want the best pans you can afford in your home and business that will last a lifetime and take up that up that precious kitchen cabinet space, consider buying Hestan’s.

Image courtesy of Hestan

You do not need to be a Shokunin or 3-star Michelin chef to cook a great meal at home. But in your pursuit for kitchen excellence, Hestan is here to help along the way.

To discover more about Hestan and their range of cookware, visit their website here - https://hestan.uk.com/. 

To purchase Hestan cookware, visit the Harrods store or website here - https://www.harrods.com/en-gb/designers/hestan.

WIN A WEEKEND TRIP TO PARIS WITH HESTAN

To celebrate the launch of the luxury cookware brand in the UK, Hestan is running a competition for a chance to win a gastronomic weekend in Paris!

The prize includes flights for two from any UK airport, a 2-night stay at the prestigious hotel in the centre of Paris, La Maison Champs Élysées and a gourmet culinary experience at Le Jules Verne, Michelin star restaurant owned by the most renowned chef of his generation, Alain Ducasse.

For more details and to enter the competition, visit their website here - https://hestan.uk.com/2017/10/16/weekendinparis/

This review feature was commissioned and sponsored by Hestan. The London Foodie maintains full editorial control over all content published on this site as always.

Gourmio – Authentic Italian Ingredients and Recipes Delivered to Your Home

I love cooking at home and do it often, but when I am not recipe testing or cooking for the supper club or friends, I enjoy a good quality take-away. And that will invariably mean a choice between two of my favourite things right now – very cheesy Quatro Formaggi pizza with added extras of yes, even more cheese, or the mixed kebab special from my local Turkish – a super generous assortment of barbecued meats, rice and salad. Both bring me great joy.

But I must admit I rarely buy ready-made meals – I usually find them disappointing in both flavour and quality, mass produced and made to last, these more often than not contain all kinds of e-numbers and additives I prefer not to indulge in. 

I was recently approached by Gourmio for a sponsored review of their home-delivery service of Italian pre-made meals, and was just about to delete their email, when I took a peek at their site.

At first, Gourmio intrigued me – as a lover of Italian food (I lived in Genova to do my Erasmus and return to the country often) I was curious about their claim to bring authentic, regional Italian ingredients in pre-made meals to the UK. Their website is easy to navigate, with recipes divided by either category (starters and main dishes) or by their Italian regional provenance (Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany, and so forth). Every recipe featured on the site is well explained with great care taken to describe the ingredients used, their provenance and the historical background of each dish. I was impressed.

Gourmio was founded in 2016 by Marco Sargiani who is a real champion for Italian agricultural produce, his family has been making aceto balsamico in Modena for over 300 years! The idea of Gourmio came from a previous business concept Marco had of trading Italian DOP ingredients online (artisan products bearing a quality seal denoting Denominazione di Origine Protetta or PDO Protected Designation of Origin). Marco wanted to help small, artisan producers who often lacked the marketing and language skills to sell their products beyond their immediate region. But this idea needed a little tweaking.

In its new incarnation, Gourmio aims to offer not only some of the country’s best artisan DOP ingredients, but also presents them in recipe combinations so that authentic Italian dishes can be recreated at home with clear, easy to follow instructions. 

And it was so simple to get started - I selected the recipes I wanted to cook from their website, and Gourmio delivered the ingredients along with the recipe cards. The recipes are detailed on their site with step-by-step photos and sometimes a short Tastemade-style video, so I pretty much knew what I was getting. They state clearly what they will deliver and what you might need at home, these are usually cooking utensils like pots, pans and spoons.

As of today, there are 10 recipes available, 3 starters and 7 mains. It is not clear from their website when new dishes are added to the website, but I would guess seasonally. In my opinion, it would be helpful to know this as well as being able to see previous dishes, even if not currently available, they would give a better idea of what else we can buy and encourage us to return for more.

I ordered four different recipes to be confident in writing this review. I ordered them on a Monday pm, and was given a choice of delivery dates from Wednesday to Friday, so delivery can happen within a couple of days, and it is free for orders over £40. Dishes (for 2 people) are priced between £10 and £15.50 for both starter and main courses.

All ingredients come from Italy and are pre-cooked and vacuum-sealed. Pre-made sauces and meats display nutritional information and a full list of ingredients. I received my meals on Friday, the 28th July 2017 and the expiry date for these ingredients was 15th August 2017, so well over two weeks. This is excellent shelf life considering that there are no additives or e-numbers added.

Each recipe is delivered in its own individual box, containing a printed card with detailed, easy to follow instructions, and photos so that you know what your finished dish should look like. Recipe cards are also detailed with times, dietary notes (like contains eggs etc), provenance, difficulty level and the number of servings, which is usually 2 people per recipe. 

One of these recipes was Sicilian “Spelt Macaroni with Swordfish Ragu and Lemon Zest” (£15). 

This was an absurdly easy recipe to put together which took me just a few minutes – cook pasta in boiling salted water for 3 minutes, re-heat ragu sauce, drain pasta, add the sauce and Bob’s your uncle!

The only minor snag about this dish is that the recipe calls for parsley and lemon zest to be added though no lemon or parsley was listed as supplied or as needed to buy. Luckily we had both ingredients in the fridge to finish off the dish. 


I loved this Sicilian dish – the pasta was al dente and had a beautiful, vibrant yellow colour from the spelt flour, the swordfish ragu sauce (one of the most ancient Sicilian recipes as explained on the card) was rich and perfectly seasoned and most importantly, it tasted fresh! I could not detect even a hint of the out-of-a-jar type of flavours one gets from ready-made sauces.

Another excellent dish was Umbrian Pancia di Vitello or “roasted belly of veal with wild fennel and a side of sautéed potatoes and courgettes” (£15.50).

I love belly meat, and veal’s is such a treat. The meat had been seasoned with dill and pre-cooked, it only took 10 minutes to re-heat in the oven, just the time I needed to chop and sauté the courgette and pre-steamed potatoes in a little olive oil and parsley (again not listed).

The recipe came with a white pork sauce, which I personally felt lacked in both seasoning and flavour and did not add much to the final dish. That aside, the meat was delicious and so tender, and the vegetables were a great accompaniment.

Our meal continued in Umbria with “Strips of spelt with cockerel sauce and Castelluccio lentils” (£10). Castellucio lentils are a delicacy of this region and I was super keen to try them.

The lentils were mixed into the cockerel sauce (cockerel is a young, less than a year old male chicken), this was a delectable tomato-based sauce with cockerel meat, paprika, onion and other ingredients which I gently re-heated. 

The Straccetti di Farro pasta, another traditional Umbrian specialty made with hulled wheat, was cooked for 2 minutes in salted boiling water, drained and added to the cockerel and lentil sauce. The pasta had a light nutty flavour and firm texture, and the sauce tasted fresh but intensely flavoured. I loved the addition of Castellucio lentils - they brought another layer of texture and great flavour to the final dish. A fantastic little starter that did not take me 10 minutes to prepare!

Though equally good, the ‘Octopus cooked Elba style” (£10) from Elba Isle in Tuscany, was a bit more problematic – the images on the recipe card do not relate to this dish and no information is given on what to do with the octopus sauce.

As the chunky pieces of octopus were heated in their juices with the pre-steamed potatoes for about 10 minutes, I re-heated the sauce in a separate pan. 

The sauce was again fresh and well seasoned, and worked a treat with the tender octopus and the serving of steamed potatoes, we thoroughly enjoyed this Tuscan dish.

I was genuinely impressed by the quality of the ingredients and the opportunity to learn about Gourmio’s dishes, their provenance and historical background. For a new start-up, Gourmio still has a few teething issues to put right, and despite the minor snags with the recipe cards, I would fully recommend their delivery service

I love the concept of Gourmio, the quality of the ingredients they offer and their genuine passion to introduce to the UK some of the best regional ingredients and dishes of Italy, but most importantly - their food is pretty tasty too! 

To find out more about Gourmio’s dishes and try them for yourself, visit their website here and place your order!

Disclaimer – this was a sponsored feature by Gourmio. The London Foodie has however maintained full editorial control over its content as always.

Food Photography - Which Has the Best Phone Camera: Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge or iPhone 6s?

I was recently approached by the mobile network provider Three, to review their new Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge for food photography. I am an iPhone 6s user, and an Apple die-hard, but decided to take on the task as I am a long-standing Three customer.

I have lost count of how many years I have been with Three, and as a food and travel writer, I can’t think of a better network to be on. This is mostly because of their “Feel At Home” countries, an ever-expanding list (currently 42, including almost all of the EU, the USA, Australia, and as far as Indonesia, Hong Kong and Macau), for a full list of countries, check the link here. I write this blog post from Sri Lanka, another Feel At Home country where I can surf the net, make phone calls and send text messages all using my UK contract allowance at no extra cost. It’s brilliant.

Anyway I digress. The purpose of this feature is to compare the cameras in my beloved iPhone 6s with the SamsungGalaxy S7 Edge, and how they fare in my food photography. I also describe the digital SLR camera and lens I use, recommend some excellent photo-editing applications for your phone, and share some tips on dealing with low light food photography situations.

Food photography using your phone camera

Phone cameras have come such a long way in the last few years. Today, I can get better photos from my camera phone than I was able to get from a domestic Sony digital camera just a couple of years ago. However, it’s surprising to note that even today, the quality of images varies tremendously from phone to phone.

For my food photography, I use a combination of my Canon DSLR 5d Mk III and a Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, a fantastic bit of kit which is ideal for what I do, but also came at a huge cost. I am no professional photographer and I have very limited interest in learning the technicalities of cameras and photography – these bore me to death. Little by little though, I have been learning how to get the best out of my camera by asking questions, online research, and by trial and error.

But I still take lots of pictures using my iPhone 6s, because like everyone else I carry it with me all the time, and it’s the easiest way to share images on social media. My social media channels (Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and Facebook) are an extension of The London Foodie blog, so having a phone with the best camera I can get is paramount.

Use of photo editing software and filters

In addition to the practicality of having a phone with a good camera with me all the time rather than carrying a heavy camera around, there are several excellent photo-editing apps which are easily available to download on the mobile.

The two most popular apps are Lightroom and Snapseed.  I have both on my phone but I mainly use the latter – Snapseed is a great app to bring out the colour and light from your images which suffer when taken in low level light.

iPhone 6s Image - Before Snapseed Editing

In addition, Snapseed allows you to photoshop particular areas of a picture, if say one corner of an image is too dark, that can be corrected with this app. It also allows you to “heal” bits of an image, for instance deleting an unwanted person or object in the background.

 

iPhone 6s Image - After Snapseed Editing

There are also several filters to choose from in the app, although I find this feature too gimmicky for my taste – over the years I came to the conclusion that when editing images, less is definitely more or else you can end up with something that looks artificial and tortured.

Using your phone camera in low lighting settings

I never use flash in food photography, especially in a restaurant setting where it would be intrusive for other diners. Although I have seen flash being used by professional photographers with great results. But if you don’t know what you are doing, flash can completely kill the image, bleaching the food’s colour and making it look dull and flat. 

So when visiting to review a place with challenging light conditions, like dinner at a dimly-lit restaurant, I always take my iPad with me. I discovered a few years ago that bringing the well-lit white screen of the iPad close to a dish being photographed is a good way to provide discreet but uniform light, with minimal glare or unwanted reflection. I use this trick all the time.

If I happen not to have my iPad with me, but have a supportive and self-confident companion with a smartphone, I tend to use their phone torch with the light diffused by a napkin wrapped around the torchlight. This is my second-best option, but is far preferable to using direct torch-light, which again kills most food images.

If all else fails, I take my plate to where the light is – a bar, another table, even sometimes the kitchen, though of course this will not make for a very pleasant dinner.

Comparison of Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge vs iPhone 6s

While no phone compares to a good dedicated camera, the iPhone 6s and Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge are believed to be two of the best options on the market. But how do they compare?

For this comparison, I have used the both phones’ automatic camera settings, and have not manipulated the images in any way – no editing or filters. This is the setting most people use on their phones.

I copied as a footnote a table of general specifications, focusing primarily on the display and camera functionalities, to compare the hard facts between the Galaxy S7 Edge and the iPhone 6s. I leave it to you to analyse this technical information, as this review is about my personal experience of using both phones’ cameras specifically for food photography.

You will probably note from this table that the camera specification for both phones is very comparable, except that the lens aperture differs.

Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge has a f/1.7 lens, compared with the iPhone 6s’ f/2.2. But what does this imply? It means that Samsung S7 lens has a wider aperture, and hence it will allow more light into the image whenever the lens opens. Don’t be confused by the lower denomination of the Samsung’s f number – the lower the number, the wider the aperture.

The Money Shots

I chose a lunchtime restaurant at King’s Cross’ The Lighterman, in a naturally well-lit dining room, to photograph the food using the  iPhone 6s and SamsungGalaxy S7 Edge cameras.

The first two shots, of deep-fried squid with chilli sauce, show a small but important differences. The Samsung in my opinion has sharper detail, and the image is brighter though colder.  The iPhone image has a yellowish tone to it, being warmer, and when you look closely the details are fuzzier.

Samsung S7 Edge

iPhone 6s

The next pair of images is a platter of starters. Here once again, the iPhone image is warmer, and the colours in my opinion are more intense. For me the Samsung image has let too much light in and the resulting photograph is over-exposed and bleached. However, the details are again sharper. 

iPhone 6s

Samsung 7 Edge

The next photographs from a dish of seared salmon and pineapple with diced red onion and micro-coriander, avocado and lime purée, though very similar at first glance, show startling differences in picture clarity, especially in close up.

Samsung S7 Edge

iPhone 6s

To illustrate this point, I have blown up the same image so that you can appreciate their detail. Notice the minute veins and creases visible on the back of the micro-coriander leaf from the Samsung image, which are blurred on the corresponding iPhone picture.

Samsung S7 Edge

iPhone 6s

Finally, the dessert was chocolate mousse with raspberry sorbet, fresh raspberries, lemon and lime zest, hazelnut and caramel.  Here, to conclude, we see a similar pattern – the iPhone image is warmer, darker, though the colours seem to have been tinted and the details are less clear. The Samsung on the other hand has let more light in, the colours are brighter and more true to the original (compare the blue colour of the plate between the two images – the iPhone’s is grey). Look also at the finely grated hazelnut over the chocolate mousse – it is much clearer in the Samsung image than the iPhone’s.

iPhone 6s

Samsung S7 Edge

Another common theme we have seen in all the images is that the Samsung photos are about 50% larger in Mb size, and the ISO used from the automatic setting is much higher in all the images.

Verdict

Technically speaking, the Samsung Galaxy S7Edge phone camera has slightly higher specification, and delivers clearer, brightly coloured food images, if somewhat overexposed under certain conditions. The wider lens aperture (f/1.7 vs f/2.2) allows more light into the image and the camera should fare better in low light levels. In addition, this phone camera offers a range of food related filters to photoshop with not found on the iPhone 6s.

The iPhone 6s takes warmer photographs, and is less prone to over-exposure, but suffers from a lower level of detail. The images seem fuzzier and of lower resolution though the range of colours is sometimes truer to the original than the Samsung S7 Edge.

However, having now both phones, I still do not believe I will be switching from my iPhone 6s to a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. From my perspective, the slight benefits of the Samsung camera do not outweigh the hassle of changing phone brands with everything that entails.

The Hard Facts: Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge Vs iPhone 6s

GENERAL	Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge	iPhone 6s
Price (32GB model)	£589 on samsung.com/uk	£499 on apple.com/uk
Release date	February 2016	September 2015
Dimensions (mm)	150.90 x 72.60 x 7.70	138.30 x 67.10 x 7.10
Weight (g)	157.00	143.00
Battery capacity (mAh)	3600	1715
Colours	Black, Gold, Pink Gold, Silver, Blue	Silver, Gold, Space Grey, Rose Gold
DISPLAY
Screen size (inches)	5.50	4.70
Resolution	1440x2560 pixels	750x1334 pixels
CAMERA
Rear camera	12-megapixel	12-megapixel
Flash	Yes	Yes
Front camera	5-megapixel	5-megapixel
Aperture	f/1.7	f/2.2