Qiao Lin! I prefer the Streeterville location that opened up in the past year or so :) huge sauce bars and tons of space / seating More on reddit.com

Most brands are sold at a variety of places. As mentioned, Williams Sonoma will have a good selection of high end pans, and so will Crate & Barrel. Department stores like Macy's will carry a good selection, and so will Bed Bath & Beyond. W-S and C&B will probably be more expensive than Macy's and BB&B but will generally have higher quality items, while Macy's and BB&B will carry a wider assortment and more items on the lower end. All-Clad is kind of the default high-end pot and pan brand, but I really do not like the handles or find them comfortable to hold, at all, especially when full and heavy. There are other high-end brands that are as good with more ergonomic handles (Viking comes to mind). I would stay away from Cuisinart, my dad had these and the rivets eventually gave after a few years. Do not feel like you have to buy a full set of one thing or another. We have a mix of pots and pans and that serves us really well. I find that having a nonstick pan or two is really handy, but I have no use for a full set of nonstick pots. My most commonly used and loved pots and pans are: A very inexpensive stainless stock pot for making stocks and soups (fine if you're just going to be sweating some veg and mostly simmering liquids), an enameled cast iron dutch oven (Le Crueset, but there are other good brands like Staub), an Anolon Advanced anodized nonstick fry pan in 12" and 6" (the only nonstick I recommend, they last for a decade plus if you take good care of them), a cast iron pan, several 15+ year old Zwilling/Henckles pots in 3 sizes (a small 4-cup pot, a medium 4 quart pot, and a larger 8 quart pot, and a wok. We also have a few other pieces (like a stainless fry pan and some other Le Crueset pieces) but the ones I mentioned get the most use. More on reddit.com

Retired fine-dining chef. Worked at half the places on the Las Vegas Strip. Restaurants there use the least-expensive pans which will get the job done. Most serious foodies have better cookware than what I used professionally. I have the gamut -- a complete set of Mauviel copper (which I found at an estate sale for almost nothing); vintage cast iron; carbon steel; stainless. I reach for cast iron more than the rest of my pans combined. I reach for a really good immersion circulator almost as often as I reach for a pan. More on reddit.com