I have an Elkay without the problem, I spray the sides and pretty much everything heads to the drain. As an aside, I just stopped using the custom rack after 10 years. What satisfaction!

I bought one of the Ruvati sloped sinks (Venio Nova), but I haven't had it installed yet. Anything has to be better than the temporary Delta workstation sink with grid that I am using now.

A single bowl in a good stainless sink, avoid precision sharp corners, and as to using a grid? I never have. No sink is going to be so steeply sloped that you won't need water and a little push for food scraps. Not arduous : )

Delta, Ruvati, Franke, Blanco all are good.

The apartment that my daughter rents has a shallow stainless steel single bowl sink that slopes. It is so annoying. Items in the sink start sliding towards the drain. I have had spoons end up in the drain that slid there due to the slope.

I have the grid in my sink and I like it. It is individual preference.

IMO the larger the sink the more crap gets stuck . All sinks slope every so slightly to the drain and a center drain much better than one off to one side or at the back. I hate those grids they collect gunk and add one more thing to clean . I do however advise a good faucet with a good pull down spray . I find the very sharp corners nice to look at but do make cleaning the sink a bit harder . All the work staion sinks are even worse to clean with all the ledges the grids for no real function IMO.

Me too with a grid. In a Blanco silgranite sink. Can't speak to stainless. But seriously.....you shouldn't have to removethe grid to spray the sink underneath. You do have to remove the grill to clean the underside but that's minor. No grid = scratches.

I have a SS three compartment sink. I am assuming you want the large baby bathtub style. I don't get their usefulness they must hold a wasteful amount of water. Grid? Scratches? In the sink? What sort of garbage are these sinks made of? I understand someone who gives large parties, caters needing over sized sheets cleaned but day in day out I go for function and ease of use.

Sinks scratch, @arcy-gw. A zillion other posts have outlined the issue. No, not all sinks, but yes it does happen.

The natural patina on a satin finish bottom stainless sink? These aren't gouges, and the super fine scratching that will occur changes nothing regarding the soft shine/good looks bottom. I've had a single bowl Blanco for twenty years, I imagine it is good for another 20! I've never used a grid, ( UGH! one more thing to clean) and all manner of pots or pans have been tossed in for a good scrub. There are no dents, either. A quick wash/wipe with a Norwex cloth, and basically it looks like the day it went in.

A good stainless sink will outlast you. .......and probably the kitchen as well. Lot's of hand wring over a sink isn't really necessary.

Go to a good dedicated plumbing supply, and pick one you like.

The grid isn't for scratches. It's so you can put stuff in the sink and not get the pot dirty with food scraps, and to be able to wash stuff down without having to move stuff out of the way. I love the grid in mine for those reasons. Obviously ymmv but don't knock it until you tried it.

No one is filling a large single bowl sink up with water to do dishes. Most dishes should be in the dishwasher anyway, and the large sink is too clean the stuff that doesn't fit or can't go in the DW (large sheet pans, enameled cast iron, knives). That stuff requires a little bit of water, a scrub, and a little more water to rinse. The number of people who fill a sink to do dishes is vanishingly small. But yes, if that's how you do dishes you shouldn't buy a large single bowl sink.

As far as slope at the bottom, my sink would probably annoy you because it does take some spraying to get stuff down. I've gotten better at it and it never bothered me that much in the first place. If it bothers you, look for an offset drain so at least you can spray stuff to one side and get it in the vicinity instead of chasing it around a center drain.

Recently did this & went from an old double-bowl stainless to a single. Weren’t a lot of options in the style I needed & wanted & settled on the Elkay Lusterstone. For the price, I’m a little disappointed. It definitely stays dirty much more easily than my old 90’s sink & I think it’s due to the lusterstone finish. There’s a trend aversion to anything shiny anymore, but shiny is easier to clean. This finish is somewhere between matte & satin, leaning more towards matte. So food sticks to it even if you rinse & rinse. And no, I don’t bother with a grid, so nothing for things to get stuck on other than the sink surface itself. As far as the slope, it’s okay, because water drains and things don’t roll and fall in if you set them down, so that’s nice. I have a center drain with rounded corners and a sprayer faucet, so it’s not like I can’t reach all areas with the water. Some of it I think is just the nature of a larger sink and surface area. But my previous method of easily cleaning up the old sink no matter how grungy it got doesn’t work on this one. It is much quieter than the old sink though. But for the price and all their bragging about how easy it is to keep it looking nice, nope! Fastest to look dirty in my experience based on old stainless sinks.

@arcy_gw function and ease of use are subjective. A 3 bowl sink would not be functional or easy to use for me. I would think most people would not find a 3 bowl sink functional or easy to use. I do not fill the sink to wash dishes. Many dishes go in the dishwasher and then the rest get washed by hand. I scrub everything up and then rinse everything. Just because one is not a caterer doesn't mean they do not use large sheet pans.

Anything from Kraus with rounded corners is typically easy to clean. For example:

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Kraus-Premier-Kitchen-Sink-23-in-x-17-5-in-Stainless-Steel-Single-Bowl-Undermount-Residential-Kitchen-Sink/1003198196

Grids are horrible

I have a ruvati and love it. water goes down easily.

Just cleaned up dinner

Twenty yr old Blanco below

A small tip: Often, if you look at the specifications for a sink, you can see if the sink is sloped toward the drain. This is most important if the drain is at one end of the sink instead of the middle.

We are using Ruvati for our new build, after extensive searching. It seems like there are a lot of very similar sinks out there, with the main difference being brand name and price.

I have a Blanco stainless sink with a grid. A quick spray around the sink and everything goes to the drain. I have a small round scrub brush that you can put soap into. I do a quick scrub to the grid and around the sink then rinse. Had it for 19 years and it looks great!

@pndnca: Know you didn’t ask about depth, but that’s another factor to take into consideration if you haven’t already. It wouldn’t have occurred to me either until reading all of these discussions on Houzz & then finally using a really deep one during a vacation stay. It’ll be personal preference, of course, but your own height will be a deciding factor for the comfort level of how far down you want to reach for things in the bottom of the sink. @Buehl is absolutely right about the 50/50 bowls being the least pleasant. The sink that I just replaced was a 50/50 and only around 6 inches deep. Definitely not made for washing pots or large trays. Don’t think the people who originally installed it ever cooked or baked. Either that or they just used disposables all the time.

I wrote a blog several years ago about user height and the depth of sinks based on the type of sink. Perhaps it might be of interest.