5 appliances for your luxury kitchen project

When it comes to selecting luxury appliances for the kitchen, you’re not just looking for beautifully resolved design, you can also expect appliances to significantly enhance and elevate your cooking and dining experiences.

This means more intuitive cooking, beautifully preserved and incredible-tasting food.

Luxury appliance brand Sub Zero & Wolf are leaders in high-end kitchen appliances, and managing director Sophia Bristow says luxury appliances are not just exquisite to use, but they add value, too.

“Over time, it's actually an investment you're making for the family – superior food preservation technology means less food items to throw away each week – not to mention that a luxury kitchen helps with a home's presence and resale value later on.”

With luxury appliances there should be a perfect balance between form and function.

“The functionality and longevity of appliances should also be paired with stunning design possibilities, because our kitchen is a reflection of who we are as individuals, how we cook for the family, and how we entertain. Our Sub Zero and Wolf appliances encompass both of these, and the design possibilities are endless in terms of integration into the cabinetry and your kitchen.”

Here’s Sophia’s top five appliance picks to up-level your kitchen.

Without wine preservation, your beautiful wine won’t taste like it should. That’s because vibration, UV light and incorrect storage temperatures alter the wine’s ageing process. Investing in a wine preservation unit is the best way to ensure your wine is preserved and tastes exactly as was intended.

The Sub Zero wine preservation unit takes wine cooling and storage to the next level.

It has a triple layer of tinted glass with argon gas between the layers (so it doesn’t condensate) which means absolutely no UV light comes through. The super quiet compressor means there’s minimal vibration, too.

“Vibration is an enemy to preservation because when you keep shaking it, the sediments will start mixing with your wine and age your collection prematurely,” says Sophia.

This particular wine preservation unit has cherrywood rack fascia which can be removed and customised with your own kitchen materials to seamlessly match your space.

Your cooker is truly the centre of the kitchen. It’s important to choose one that works for your cooking needs, but also commands some presence in the space. The Wolf dual fuel cooker ticks both these boxes, and allows you to be the best chef possible in your kitchen.

Its unique DualStack burners offer two gas rings per burner, that operate independently from each other, meaning you can get the highest of highs, and the lowest of lows in temperature.

“This is fantastic for wok cooking, for example, or to temper chocolates or custards straight on gas without a water bowl on double boil. It’s really special,” says Sophia.

The electric oven offers 50 gourmet recipes so you can cook a meal to perfection, and these include resting time for meat, for example, so that when the roast comes out of the oven you can carve it immediately.

But the real secret to this oven is the even distribution of heat throughout.

“There are no dead spots. So for example, we can cook brownies on three levels at the same time, and they will all be cooked exactly the same.”

When it comes to luxury fridge-freezers, what you’re looking for is ultimate food preservation. If you’re buying the most beautiful food, you don’t want it to deteriorate before you can use it. In your average fridge, there’s one compressor and evaporator for both the fridge and freezer. This means the very dry, Arctic -18℃ air from the freezer gets recycled into the fridge, wilting your fruit and vegetables. Conversely, the warm 3℃ air of the fridge gets recycled through the freezer, causing crystallisation or freezer burn.

All Sub Zero refrigerators have a unique Dual Sealed System, with a separate compressor and evaporator servicing each of the fridge and the freezer.

“We’ve tested this system and we've got a piece of meat in our freezer with a best before of May 2022 and it doesn't have freezer burn. The ice cream from the same time is still scoopable with no ice on the surface after two years, and we have an apple from April last year that has still not rotted, it’s simply shrunk in size.”

The added bonus to this system is the ice cubes from the ice maker never stick together, or form a big “brick” of ice at the bottom of the tray.

You would think this system would drain the electricity, but the manufacturing is so clever the whole unit runs on the same amount of electricity as a 100 Watt light bulb.

A warming drawer is a multi-use appliance that can be used for so many things. The Wolf indoor/outdoor warming drawer is particularly special because it can be used in an indoor or outdoor kitchen and it not only keeps the food warm, it is a cooking appliance in itself.

“Because we can get up to 92℃ – which is actually well and truly meeting the food safety standards – it can proof dough, it can sous-vide, and it can slow cook.”

Of course, it can also be used at a low temperature, and Sophia has even seen it used in resort-type luxury environments like super yachts, as a warming drawer for bathrobes or towels.

An outdoor kitchen is just as important as an indoor one when it comes to design and functionality. Plus, you’ll often be entertaining and cooking for guests in your outdoor kitchen, so it’s important to consider the appliances and the experience they offer.

The 150cm Wolf outdoor grill is the ultimate in luxury cooking outdoors. It has a rotisserie that can fit up to eight chickens, so it’s perfect for large-scale dining, such as Christmas lunch.

The grill has a combination of radiant and direct heat which really caramelises the food and gives it maximum flavour. It also has a zone where the heat output is 7.5kw.

“You can put a piece of meat on for a couple minutes each side and you can move it on to a different zone to finish it off. It also comes with a griddle plate, where you can do more delicate pieces of meat, such as scallops or fish, or even make pancakes.”

One of the other features is very special for an outdoor kitchen – a side burner, which you can use to boil hot water or cook pasta, for example. It means you can create the ultimate cooking and dining experience without ever heading back indoors.

Discover more luxury kitchen appliances by Sub Zero & Wolf