Le Creuset Reviews
We bought these three ourselves and have cooked with them for three to four years. Below are the three verdicts, what each one is for, and where the price is not justified.
We bought all three ourselves.
Nobody sent us a Le Creuset skillet, a rice pot or a kettle. We paid for all three, cooked with them for years before writing anything, and the drawbacks stayed on the page.
The buy buttons further down are affiliate links, and so are the ones in the three full reviews. We may earn a small commission if you buy through one, at no extra cost to you, and it never decides the verdict. The detail is on our affiliate disclosure.
Three pieces, three picks
We would buy all three of these again, so there is no single winner on this page. The skillet is the everyday one, searing, frying and baking on any hob, and it is the piece that fits the most kitchens. The rice pot is for a kitchen that cooks rice or grains most weeks, and the kettle is for a stovetop or induction home that wants one built to outlast the cheap electric it replaces.
The rice pot and the kettle are both genuinely good, but narrower. The rice pot (4.7/5, three years of weekly use) carries a premium price, significantly higher than most electric rice cookers, and it only earns that if you cook rice or grains often enough to use it weekly, the way we do. The kettle (4.8/5, four years of daily use) is a simple, well-built stovetop kettle, but it has no internal fill markings and a lower maximum fill than you would expect from the outside of it, so if either of those would genuinely bother you day to day, it is the one to think twice about.
The three we own
Check the current price on Amazon from any card below. These are affiliate links: we may earn a small commission if you buy through one, at no extra cost to you, and it never decides the verdict. We bought all three of these ourselves, before any of them earned us anything.
Skillet
Three years of near-daily use and it still heats evenly, holds its enamel, and shows no real wear. What you get back is a surface that sears as well now as it did new, and a lifetime guarantee behind it.
Watch out: it is heavy, and the handle gets properly hot, so a towel or mitt is not optional.
Read the full skillet review →
Rice Pot
Three years of weekly rice and it still turns out fluffy grains with steady, even heat and little sticking. There is nothing in it to break or replace, and the enamel cleans up with warm water alone.
Watch out: it is heavy, and it takes a few uses to learn your own water ratios.
Read the full rice pot review →
Kone Kettle
Four years of daily use and it still boils fast and looks the part, which is the whole point of buying one built to outlast a cheap electric kettle. It works on every stovetop type, induction included.
Watch out: no internal fill markings, and the maximum fill is lower than you would expect.
Read the full kettle review →The three, compared
Our scores are judgement, not arithmetic. Each one is our own reading after three to four years of living with that piece, and the drawbacks in the watch-out row are the ones that were still true on the day we wrote this.
Where Le Creuset does not justify the price
All three of these carry a premium price, and none of them hide it. The skillet and the rice pot are both genuinely heavy (cast iron does not come in a light version), and the handles on both get hot enough that a mitt or towel is not optional. The kettle’s stainless steel finish is excellent, but Le Creuset did not put fill markings inside it, and the usable capacity is smaller than the outside of the kettle suggests. None of that is added here for balance: it is what we noted using each of these for years, and it is carried straight through from the full reviews linked above, not smoothed over on this page.
There are no fill markings inside the Kone, so you are judging the water level by eye, and the maximum fill is lower than the size of the kettle suggests. Four years in, those are still the only two things we would change about it.
Le Creuset is the wrong buy for some kitchens.
None of that makes these bad products. It makes them the wrong fit for a specific kind of kitchen, and it is worth knowing before you pay the premium.
You want a lighter pan
If a lighter pan matters more to you than a lifetime guarantee, cast iron generally is not the answer, Le Creuset or otherwise.
You want to set it and walk away
If you want an electric rice cooker you can set and walk away from, the cocotte is a manual pot that rewards attention, not automation, and it takes a few batches to learn.
You want fill markings or a big kettle
If you want a kettle with visible fill markings or a genuinely large capacity, the Kone’s specs will annoy you before the four-year mark we have reached with ours.
You will not use it every week
The rice pot only earns its premium if rice and grains are a weekly habit in your kitchen, not an occasional one. Used a few times a year, it is a lot of money sitting in a cupboard.
The cookware review we refused to write
A cookware brand offered to send us a full set of nonstick pans, around €1200 worth, in exchange for a review. It was a real offer and that is real money. But nonstick is exactly the category we would not recommend: the coating degrades, the lifespan is short, and it is a problem to recycle at the end of it. The only honest review we could have written would have been a negative one, so we wrote nothing at all.
Frequently asked
It depends on what you cook, not on which one we rated highest. The skillet if you are on the hob most days, because it sears and holds heat better than anything else in our kitchen. The rice pot if you cook rice or grains weekly, which is the only use that earns back what it costs. The kettle if you want a stovetop one that will outlast an electric kettle, and you do not mind filling it by eye. We still use all three.
In our experience, yes, if you actually use them. All three pieces here carry a premium price and none of them are trying to hide that. But after three to four years of regular use, none of them have needed replacing, and the skillet and rice pot both come with Le Creuset’s lifetime guarantee.
Yes, across all three products we have tested. The skillet and rice pot both work on all hob types including induction and are oven-safe, and the Kone kettle is built specifically for stovetop and induction use.
We can only speak to our own units: the skillet and rice pot are each three years in with no real wear, and the kettle is four years in, used daily, and still performing. All of that is documented, with photos, in the full reviews linked from this page.
How our ratings work
Scores are judgement, not arithmetic
The ratings on this page are our own editorial judgement after buying and living with each product for years, not an average of reader votes or a number supplied by Le Creuset. We do not accept payment to change a verdict, and if something disappointed us, that stays in the review.