23 Year old, looking for first cookware set with longevity, suggestions? I am ready to start cooking in my new apartment and I am looking for a cookware set that users on SA have purchased and would recommend to a beginner chef.

My main goal is buying a set that will last a long time. There was this set I was interested in on Woot! but a lot of bad reviews were claiming that during the first two weeks of use the pans would already start to show signs of wear, and black spots would appear, apparently signifying a break through to the aluminum core inside a lot of the cookware.

The main factor I worry about is whether or not the metals will leech into my food. I don't know much about cooking but I don't want to be poisoned by my cookware.

One last factor I consider is price, but I'd rather pay for quality over shoddy, toxic pots and pans.

Does anyone have any brands they trust and would recommend?

Thank you for your help!
Buying piece by piece is generally a better option than buying a set, because you can get higher quality individual pieces versus spending money on things you need.

Nonstick doesn't last forever, so spending a lot of money on nonstick doesn't make a lot of sense.

The Food Lab and America's Test Kitchen both have lists of pots and pans you want to have (as well as recommendations(+reviews in the latter case) for brands easily found in the US). They're smaller than a cookware set you'd buy, but may still be too much depending on what you do. Buy what you need -- I cook almost everything I eat in a stainless steel skillet and my other pans don't really get all that much use (and you can always buy them later; I don't need a dutch oven for example). I think the Food Lab list is a bit more reasonable (but some of the stuff is clearly dependent on cooking style, e.g. woks).

Also, note that you can re-use a lot of pots and pans or work around having specific ones on a list -- for example, a rimmed baking sheet + wire rack takes up less space than a roasting pan (and works fine for roasting birds or whatever; it doesn't do everything a roasting pan does, but its way cheaper for good quality stuff).