Ovens, stoves, cooktops...

I truly hate my current electric stove.  Two of its burners stopped working about four months ago and we haven't gotten around to fixing them because the kitchen reno was "just around the corner".

Picking out the new stove was surprisingly challenging.  Was it even a stove?  Should I go with a separate cooktop and built-in wall oven? Googling makes it easy to hear other people's opinions and from the comments at various sites I decided on a range.

Such a range of choice on ranges!

I narrowed options by choosing a gas top, dual fuel with an electric oven, so that considerably cut the options, but there was still so much to choose from.

At one point Rob and I were both lusting after a red Bertazzoni.  We loved the way it looked.   It would be like having a piece of Italy in the kitchen.  Perfetto! The fact it was painted in the Ferrari factory was an additional enticement.  At $6K it was blowing my budget, but I  rationalized that prorated over the next 20 years it was a more than reasonable price to pay.


We were about to put our money down when we walked into the showroom and saw the Wolf on sale. Professional Series, excellent performance, built to last, and almost $2K cheaper.  It may not have been painted in the Ferrari factory but it did have nice red buttons.

Then I checked out Consumer Reports.  The Bertazzoni performance was rated surprisingly low, the Wolf rated almost 3x higher.

Another model was also catching my eye.  Not only was it half the price of the Wolf it was outranking it on Consumer Reports.

The one that first caught my attention was recommended by CR, and had some additional features - a 5th burner, an extra oven, and a slow cooker  One drawback was the high back.  I also wondered about having the larger oven on the bottom - wouldn't that make it harder to get heavier dishes in and out?

In the end, we went with The Kitchen Aid, Architect Series, Dual Fuel, frameless style. We lucked out because a sale happened to be on, which lowered the price another 20%.  This model has a warming oven.  Great for plate-warming, cuing the next course warm, dehydrating, proofing home made bread, and drying flowers.  The stovetop has a reversible grate for integrated wok cooking.

I'm feeling confident about my decision and hoping the oven will last for at least 20 years.  I'm sure by that time there will be even more options to choose from.

If all goes well, the new oven should be in my new kitchen in 6 - 8 weeks.  I'm looking forward to having four burners that actually work!  Maybe I'll pick myself up a nice red wok with all the money I saved.