Induction vs Gas cooking? Opinions?

I have a private chef friend who just put in a 30" Viking induction range in his kitchen remodel (the building he is in doesn't have gas, so he had to go with some form of electric). I've cooked on it once briefly with him. He's told me so far he likes it, but it has some draw backs; the burners are smaller than some of his pans (some 12" +/- skillets - some of which are ScanPan CTX) and if he's making a ragu/ratatouille, the simmering will not extend to the entire perimeter of the pan - the simmering will be confined to the area of the burner. Induction doesn't heat like a gas burner, so the heat in the pan is confined to the area of the element rather than radiating out to the entire area. The temperature control range is not consistent - low is very low and high is high, but in between the dial settings are not what you'd normally think of as incremental. Not a big deal really but something he's had to adjust to.

On the plus side, you turn it off and take off the pan and the surface isn't hot. The surface is all one plane of smooth glass, so clean-up is a breeze compared to taking off the grates and cleaning around gas burners.

Overall he likes it, but I think if he had a choice, he'd have gone w/ gas. Me personally, I haven't had much time with them, and I'd prolly go with gas too unless I had some revelatory experience.

If you have a good pan, the heat will radiate through the pan pretty well. Cast iron doesn't do this well on induction, but various clad and disc bottomed pots have worked wonderfully for me. As with any electric system you do have to do some matching to the size of the burner, but if you're reasonably close, it's fine. And that's true for gas too, but it tends to spread more than any other heating system.

A lot of it depends on how much you're willing to spend. There are induction systems that sense the size of your pan and match it. But that costs extra.

It can be very gas like in heating power and response to turning heat up or down. You also often have the option to set temperatures and the burner will hold it. It can be some really cool technology and a marvelous cooktop.

But its quite expensive to get all the nifty features. theinductionsite.com has plenty of worthwhile information.