I will agree with Sur La Table or Williams Sonoma, but these stores aren't in all countries. Over the years I have brought back some of the hardest things to transport in my suitcase, I am getting wiser, but vacations are often for that hunt, I can understand. Good luck with it, find it, buy it, and stuff all your dirty clothes in it and be off.

Zabar's kitchen department has a wide range of copper pots.

aussiedreamer,

I notice you will also be visiting Tuscany. Be sure to stop in Montepulciano and check out Cesare Mazzetti's shop, Rameria Mazzetti- an incredible selection of handmade copper. If your timing is right, you can also view Cesare working his magic at his nearby workshop. He is a very open person and happy to discuss his craft. If he doesn't have on hand what you want (hard to believe though), he will create it for you.

http://www.bccmp.com/mazzetti/

This is a great foodie blog - with particular focus on Paris -You may find this recent entry on cookware shops in Paris helpful and generally interesting:

http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archive..._supplies.html

Thanks one and all, all being printed and saved

Villedieu-les-Poeles is a charming village in Normandy and on a day filled with sunshine, the copper pots gleam outside every shop in the town! A glorious sight. I bought my collection in the spring of 1979 with a friend (we bought copper for USAF wives stationed in the UK) and transported it back to all at our base. What a fun trip and the copper is still great!

Dehillerin, definitely. I'm a baker and I buy my specialist baking supplies there (couche, lame, baneton etc): Dehillerin is not for browsing. They assume you're a working cook and know what you want to buy: so ask what you need from one of the shop assitants. You will then be referred to a person who makes you a "facture", which you pay and you collect your parafernalia from another counter.

If you are going to the Dordogne, stop by St. Amand-de-Coly. On the small intersection in front of the church there is a <i>dinandier</i> who is been distinguished as a <i>meilleur ouvrier de France</i>. His stuff is not cheap and has skyrocketed since we purchased a small pot from him (it took three years between order and delivery, but he charged us the original price).

I apologize for repeating myself on an old thread.

The basement of Galeries Lafayette--the main store, that is--is filled with all kinds of cooking equipment. Years ago we bought a fish poacher; it arrived in a specially made wooden box.

Just so everyone knows this thread was revived after almost 3 years in the Fodors basement.