Le Creuset turns 100
You’ve probably seen it—brightly-colored cookware in fiery red and orange, maybe in a friend’s kitchen, in a department store, or in your social media feed. That’s Le Creuset, the French company celebrating 100 years of colorful cooking.
A century ago, cookware was boring. It only came in shades of gray, brown, and black. But that changed in 1925, when two Belgian entrepreneurs founded Le Creuset—their names were Octave Aubecq and Claude Vanderspikken.
They worked with a French industrialist who specialized in cast iron. Cast iron is a very heavy metal that had long been used in cooking. It’s a very flexible cooking material because it retains and distributes heat evenly. With a cast iron skillet, you can sear meat like steak, chicken, and pork chops. The sizzling-hot cast iron makes the meat brown and crispy on the outside, but soft and juicy on the inside. With a cover, you can make cakes, pies, and bread in a skillet. And you can even fry eggs, sauté vegetables, and bake pizza.
There were a few problems with the cast-iron cookware available in the early twentieth century. First, it was only available in black, and it was hard to clean. Cast iron also developed rust easily, especially if it was not seasoned and maintained. The physical designs were not exactly user-friendly; it was hard to pick up and manage the hot metal.
The Belgian entrepreneurs’ idea was to coat the cast iron with a colorful enamel. An enamel is a smooth, glass-like coating that is fused to the metal.
What was so special about the enamel coating? Well, it did a few important things. On the outside, it made a dark, heavy cast-iron pan look good: the enamel on the exterior could be any color. It didn’t have to be black. The original color of Le Creuset cookware is still the company’s famous red-orange hue.
The other advantage to the enamel? It made the cookware easier to clean and maintain. A thin layer of enamel on the cooking surface protected the cast-iron and made it easier to clean after the meal. The enamel was also rust-proof, so a heavy cast iron pan could last much longer.
Design mattered to the founders, too. They committed to making the pieces easier to handle, with flexible handles and tops that made cooking and serving easier. They called their company Le Creuset, which means “the crucible” in French. They produced the original pieces in a foundry in the northeast of France.
Soon, discerning French cooks were hooked.
Le Creuset’s original product was a Dutch oven. A Dutch oven is a large cast-iron pot with a cover. It’s used for slow cooking. It’s great for stews, soups, and other one-pot meals. The advantage of a Dutch oven is that heat circulates evenly inside. You can put a Dutch oven over a fire or in a hearth. You can also put hot coals on the lids of a Dutch oven to even out the heat.
Other early products included a round, deep pot used for stovetop cooking; casserole dishes; saucepans; and frying pans. They all came in Le Creuset’s signature color, Volcanique—a fiery blend of red and orange, with a gradient effect that fades from the top to the bottom.
After just a few years, Le Creuset cookware had become so popular in France that the company looked to expand. They started exporting to Belgium and the United Kingdom. And then, in the 1950s, they entered the American market.
The timing turned out to be perfect. Home cooking was on the rise, thanks to affordable home appliances. The mid-twentieth century ideal of a family living in a single house, with a mom at home cooking: this was perfect for Le Creuset. At the same time, Americans were falling in love with French cooking—slow-cooked meats, rich sauces, stews, and baked goods. This was considered a refined, sophisticated way to cook. And Le Creuset gave American cooks a durable and beautiful way to cook sophisticated French recipes.
Pretty soon, Le Creuset pieces weren’t just for cooking. They were also part of a kitchen’s décor. And a funny thing happened: people bought more Le Creuset pieces than they really needed, just to mix and match the colors.
The company leaned into the trend, producing pieces in bright colors, neutral colors, and pastels, allowing customers to mix and match and create their own colorful kitchens. They expanded into salt and pepper shakers, utensils, storage jars, fondue pots, tea kettles, and more.
For many couples, having Le Creuset cookware became something of a rite of passage. If you had Le Creuset in your kitchen, you were finally a grown-up adult. You could make a dish from a Julia Child cookbook, just the way the famous French chef did herself. Many couples put the fiery pots and skillets on their wedding registries.
There was even more good luck for the company. In the 1960s, large chain stores were starting to spread across the United States. And two of these chains used Le Creuset cookware as a major driver of sales. They were Williams-Sonoma and Pottery Barn. Both those chains still sell Le Creuset cookware today, sixty years later.
In the mid-1980s, an outside investor bought out the company’s founders. Le Creuset remains in private hands, so sales, profits, and other business metrics are not public. But the United States is its biggest market, followed by Japan and Europe.
Le Creuset is as relevant now, 100 years after its founding, as it ever has been. These days, Le Creuset has a loyal following online. Their Instagram is filled with colorful pots, vintage ads, and fans showing off their creations. They drop limited-edition pieces that sell out instantly—and then pop up on eBay for a hefty premium.
They’ve even done special versions: Star Wars, Harry Potter, Hello Kitty. There’s white cookware in Meghan Markle’s new Netflix show. And yes, there are superfans—some even dedicate entire rooms to display their collections.
But this is the exception. Most people don’t buy Le Creuset on a whim—let’s be honest; they are expensive. People buy the pieces for their flexibility and durability. It’s not uncommon to hear stories about couples who have had the same Le Creuset pieces in their kitchens for fifty or sixty years; some people even inherit Le Creuset from parents who have passed away.
Jeff’s take
Le Creuset still makes its signature cast iron pans in the original foundry in France, though most of its pieces are made in Portugal, Thailand, and China.
I got a few Le Creuset pieces as gifts, from my parents. One was not a Dutch oven exactly, but it was like a deep saucepan with a cover that doubled as a small frying pan. I also got some baking dishes, which I used a lot.
But I never had a cast iron skillet or a Dutch oven. I’m not a sophisticated enough cook to make good use of them. I imagine some future version of myself, searing lamb chops on a cast-iron skillet or baking an apple pie in a Dutch oven—but that version of myself is far, far in the future!
All joking aside, I have cooked with a Dutch oven—but it was camping. As a kid on camping trips, we would cook in a Dutch oven and it was great. You could build a fire and literally just put the Dutch oven in the fire, put hot coals on the top, and whatever was inside would be delicious when it was done. It took a while. But it would be delicious.
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