Basket Case: What to Buy at Hedley & Bennett, According to Our Editors

Welcome to Basket Case, wherein your trusty VICE editors scour the proverbial aisles of our favorite online retailers to bring you a smorgasbord of the absolute best things to buy. In this installment, we're decking out our kitchens with staples from Hedley & Bennett, the iconic apron brand that’s expanded to make premium knives, kitchen shoes, and beyond.

If you’ve ever watched Top Chef, peeped your fave food personality on Instagram, or simply eaten in a good restaurant, you’ve almost certainly encountered kitchen gear made by Hedley & Bennett. Immediately identifiable by its signature ampersand logo, the brand’s aprons, clothing, knives, and kitchen linens are ubiquitous in professional and home kitchens alike; they’ve basically become a cool-person signifier, the way JNCO and Abercrombie & Fitch were in the 90s, or how tight jeans, huge sunglasses, and copies of Infinite Jest were 15 years ago. Today, when you see someone wearing a Hedley & Bennett apron or using its knives, you know they’re plugged into the currents of kitchen style, and are at least probably a passable cook (though I’ve been wrong about this before, SMH). 

The brand was born in 2012 when founder Ellen Bennett, then a cook in Michelin-starred restaurants, sought to create a more comfortable and handsome apron than what was currently available. A decade later, her products have a reputation as nothing short of pro-grade industry standards. Super durable and colorful—literally, they come in like a billion colorways—but not stuffy or flashy, Hedley & Bennett’s aprons are the centerpiece of an ever-expanding catalog that now includes kitchen linens, knives, hats, and even a pretty sick collab with Crocs. This gear is the real deal—it’s all extremely high quality and reliable, from ultra-sharp utility knives that let you slice and dice squash like you’re Gordon Ramsay to aprons that actually protect you from oil splashes and fish guts (and make you look polished while doing it). 

Whether you want to upgrade your current kitchen gear situation, deck out the staff of your restaurant, or gift a loved one some gear they’ll reach for every time they need to roast a chicken or make a batch of fresh-baked brownies, here’s our guide to the best things to buy from Hedley & Bennett.

You may have spent years convincing yourself that all the marinara, oil, and wine stains you acquire while cooking are charming additions to your favorite T-shirts, and mean you’re a true artist in the kitchen (a “sandwich artist,” perhaps), but it’s decidedly not a sexy look. Seriously, just pay attention to your partner/spouse/Tinder date next time you’re sprucing up a frozen pizza or making a coq au vin from scratch and see if they get noticeably hornier the messier you get. Wake up, my brothers and sisters in kitchen warfare: If you’re doing real cooking, you deserve one of Hedley & Bennett’s highly coveted aprons—and not only because they look cool as hell. (On that note, fellow Deadheads: Don’t forget to peep the fan-fave Grateful Dead collab.) They’re the perfect intersection of style and utility, featuring cotton twill (or cotton denim) fabric that has a lifetime guarantee from the company. Few cooking items are more beloved right now than these aprons; they’re basically the kitchen clothing equivalent of being on the red carpet.

The crossback apron has the same overall vibe as the regular apron, but instead of the classic “around the waist” tie, this one has straps that go over your shoulders, crossing your back and looping into the opposite hip, meaning the apron’s weight will be perfectly balanced on your shoulders. This is ideal for chefs who find regular aprons (which can pull on your neck) to be uncomfortable. I am such a person, never able to find the proper adjustment, and I usually spend half my time in the kitchen re-tying and lengthening or shortening my apron in search of some “perfect” setting that doesn’t seem to exist for my body type. The crossback apron immediately solved that problem, letting me feel like I’m just cookin’ in my fave comfy ol’ shirt. A masterpiece of apron technology.

Hedley & Bennett supplies the aprons for Top Chef, among many other great cooking shows and restaurants. You can buy that exact colorway for the Tom Colicchio obsessive in your life—bald head not included (though you can get one pretty quickly with one of these.) 

Boutique culinary gear companies adding knives to their repertories is definitely “in” right now. I’ve tested out a lot of them, and they range from immediate classics to branded cash grabs. But Hedley & Bennett’s utility knife is absolutely top of class. Its 5.6-inch blade places it squarely between a paring knife and a chef’s knife, making it actually a pretty unusual offering for the typical home cook… but since you’re anything but typical [quietly presses play on Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful”], you should definitely try out this knife. It’s extremely sharp, but it’s also light and surprisingly easy to maneuver. As someone who cuts stuff literally every day, I give this knife my highest rating: a perfect Five Guy Fieris out of Five Guy Fieris.

What’s another brand that’s as universally synonymous with kitchen clothing? Crocs, which recently collaborated with Hedley & Bennett on some bone-colored, fly-as-hell, slip-resistant clogs that have an adjustable heel strap and fun, The Bear-themed Jibbitz (aka clog flair). If they had these back when I was a cook… well… I’d probably still be working at VICE now, but I might have had slightly more sex in my 20s.

If you’re the kind of person who likes cool things that match, then you’re the target audience for the kitchen drawer bundle, which includes the brand’s chef’s towels, pot holders, and oven mitts. (You don’t have to do matching ones, though.) In any case, just go ahead and take your kitchen fully ~*aesthetic*~ by H&B-ifying everything around you.

Want to get into Hedley & Bennett, but don’t actually know how to cook? We’ve got your back.

The Rec Room staff independently selected all of the stuff featured in this story. Want more reviews, recommendations, and red-hot deals? Sign up for our newsletter.