Best Deluxe Kitchen And Cooking Gifts For The Gourmet On Your Holiday List

Anyone who cooks, entertains or simply enjoys the finer things in life can benefit from the best kitchenware, appliances and gourmet accessories. One added bonus of these types of gifts is that it doesn’t matter if your choice is redundant, because if they have a coffee maker or a frying pan and you give them the latest, greatest, better one, they are going to use and appreciate it. These are the latest, greatest and best in-class kitchen tools and accessories, each personally vetted for quality.

Jura Coffee Makers: Switzerland’s Jura is to coffee makers what Switzerland’s best timepieces are to watches, the creme de la creme. Jura specializes in a category known as super-automatic, which means they perform every step of the coffee making process, from grinding whole beans to brewing to, in the case of cappuccino, latte or macchiato, precisely adding steamed milk. The Jura machines do this all for every single cup, including the grinding, for the freshest and best tasting coffee possible with whatever type of bean you like – no limited selection of pods or disposable cups. The Jura lineup has touch screen panels, customization of size, strength and temperature for everyone in your household (like memory seat positions in nicer cars), use replaceable high-quality filters for the purest, safest water, and even clean themselves before and after each day’s use. I have been using a Jura for many years and have tried all sorts of fancy coffee machines in luxury hotels and lounges around the world, but I’ve never seen better. For this holiday season coffee lovers can rejoice, because Jura’s new flagship Z10 outdoes the previous models as the first to make hot and cold brewed beverages in one countertop machine. The Z10 doubles the previous range of offered beverages, from espresso to flat white to cappuccino and many more, hot or cold. The Product Recognizing Grinder (PRG) adjusts the consistency of the grind to the desired drink as soon as you hit the button, the first step in making true cold brewed coffee, not just cold coffee or iced coffee made by cooling hot stuff. It employs real cold brew extraction first with precise coarser grinding, then pulsing cold water through at higher pressure for optimum resul

Jura machines are pricey because they are the best, so if the Z10 ($3,999) is a bit extreme for your gift budget, the new ENA 4 ($900) is the most affordable super automatic Jura yet, a single cup, compact model for pure coffee lovers (most Jura model have two spouts and can make two cups at a time), without the milk function for cappuccino and such. It simply makes great coffee and espresso, in different sizes and strengths, again from start to finish with whole beans of your choice and filtered water. In between these extremes is the new E8 ($2,400), a replacement of the full featured previous top of the line model, but without the cold brew features. This is the latest iteration of the classic do-it-all Jura I use, a robotic barista for your own kitchen. Both the computer-controlled grinder and extraction pump have been improved and the E8 can make 17 different coffee specialties at the push of the touchscreen. Jura machines are sold nationally by retailers Sur La Table and Williams Sonoma, as well as specialty coffee equipment online shops.

The Best Mixer Ever: Baking soared in popularity during the pandemic, creating many newbies, but serious bakers know that if you want the best dough, you need to start with the best mixer, and that means Ankarsrum. This ultra-high quality Swedish company has made nothing but commercial-grade mixers for home bakers for eight decades, and is widely acclaimed and regarded as the best, a notable step up from the ubiquitous KitchenAid I had been using for many years before a fellow food writer turned me on the Ankarsrum Original Mixer 6230. It is more than twice as powerful as most competitors (600 watts) and can handle far more ingredients (up to 21 cups of flour, enough to make a dozen loaves of bread in one batch).

But aside from sheer power and output, it is the performance that matters, and this is where the Ankarsrum stands alone. Instead of a bowl with a revolving hook or whisk in it, it employs an adjustable, lockable arm and it is the bowl that revolves, which mixes better and produces better dough. It is more fine-tunable – the center is not always the best place to mix but the only choice on most stand mixers, whereas here the arm and its attachments can be locked anyplace within the revolving bowl, and it is easy to find the ideal spot for your recipe. It also has a fantastic built-in scraper that constantly cleans the interior of the bowl and mixes stray ingredients back in, whereas you usually have to keep shutting your mixer to do this manually on other brands. It even has a unique roller attachment to simulate hand kneading, like nothing you have seen. It also is great for creaming butter, whipping egg whites or making icing, and while it’s super heavy duty, it weighs under 20 pounds and fits easily in most cabinets. Every design element has been perfected in the company’s 80-year relentless quest for baking perfection, and anyone on your gift list who bakes will appreciate all the work that Ankarsrum engineers have put in. It comes in 12 colors and includes two size bowls (4 and 8-quart) to make life more convenient. Want more? You can flip it on its side and add optional attachments to turn your mixer into a meat grinder, grain mill, blender, citrus juicer and more. It is the mixer of choice at America’s leading supplier of baking specialty products, King Arthur Flour (“The gold standard of mixers for bread baking! We fell head over heels for this incredibly powerful Swedish-designed machine, which mixes doughs better than any we’ve tried before”) and check out the detailed gushing review from Taste of Home (“This Splurge-Worthy Mixer is Every Baker’s Dream”). It is sold at specialty kitchen retailers like King Arthur as well as with free Prime shipping from Amazon ($699).

Syosaku Knives: The whole point of a good knife is to be sharp, and that’s why Japanese knives are the best knives you can buy for actual prep and cooking. I’ve tried every famous brand of German cutlery, and all of those now sit unused on some back shelf in my pantry, replaced by a collection of Japanese steel I’ve amassed over the years. Because Japan has a long history of artisan knife smithing, descended from Samurai swords, there are a lot of small brands that can only be purchased in Japan (or very specialized stores like Korin in New York City), and I’ve brough some back on trips to Tokyo, but there are a couple of more widely available options you can find here, and one of the best is Syosaku. It is important to note that the reason traditional Japanese knives are so sharp is because they are single beveled (like razor blades) unlike double beveled Western blades, and there now a lot of “modern” Japanese knife brands sold in gourmet stores that are double beveled. Syosaka makes the traditional versions, which must be ordered for right- or left-handed use. All the knives are designed by the company’s founder, Toshi Sekiya, and made by artisans in Sakai, a port city with a centuries long history of forging knives. Each step is divided among specialists, from forging the metal to creating the handles to finishing them. Depending on the model, it can take up to six months to craft a finished product.

There are dozens of models available, mostly from around a hundred to over four hundred dollars, with the majority in the $135-$250 range. Every traditional type of Japanese blade is offered, lots of long, thin and razor sharp sashimi knives as well as a more classic chef’s knife (Gyuto), multi-purpose Santoku, paring (petty) knives and uniquely rectangular vegetable knives (Nakiri). There are a variety of handle styles, from traditional round or square wood to ergonomic Western, and 11 different steel options for blades, including beautiful hand hammered Damascus. One of the great things about ordering from the company is that while everything is made in Japan, the website is extremely clear and explains the specific uses, advantages and steel characteristics of every model in great detail – and all shipping is free in the U.S.

Knives & Utensils As Art: When I’m doing serious cooking, thinly slicing overripe tomatoes or raw fish, I love the sharpness of the single beveled Japanese blades above. But for entertaining or actual eating, people want more form with their function, there are no high-quality blades on knives as beautiful as those from New West Knifeworks, a Jackson Hole, Wyoming-based company that employs a cadre of skilled artisan knifemakers and specializes in jaw dropping handles, just gorgeous, art gallery worthy and unlike anything else on the cutlery market. New West has been praised by everyone from Cooking Light (“Knife art”) to GQ (“A cut above”) to the NY Times (“As beautiful as it is useful”) to Saveur (“Our favorite knives”) to Bloomberg (“next level”) and even here at Forbes (“kitchen jewelry”). The secret is the G10 sheets used to make the handles, originally designed for the motherboards of super computers in Silicon Valley, which required a durable material that could withstand great heat and not change shape. To make it, layers of colored cloth and epoxy fiberglass are compressed and cooled, and then layered to from the rough handles attached around the knife tang. These are then hand ground down to the desired shape, and as material is removed, distinctive layers of multi-color wonder are revealed throughout. The G10 handles are jaw dropping to look at but also practically indestructible, and married to top quality blades of S35vn steel, developed in the U.S. specifically for knife making and supplied to the Military and medical industries. Both handles and blades are 100% handmade by New West’s domestic craftsmen, and each model is a offered in a variety of striking G10 color patterns.

But it’s not just knives. One of my favorite New West pieces is a seafood spatula, one of the most useful and overlooked kitchen tools a person who loves to cook can have – but chances are no one you knows has one as that is a piece of lifetime functional art, and if it never occurred to you that a slotted fish spatula could be worth $99, you should check this one out, a great gift in your choice of six colors. So is the large, rectangular flat “turner spatula,” a perfect option for any burger or grilling fan you know. The great thing about these utensils and knife sets from New West is that the are safe to give to even the most jaded, experienced home chef, because they will undoubtedly be better than whatever he or she has now. The same goes for the two-piece carving set, ($548) – at the holidays everyone needs to carve but few have tools this nice. Just getting this carving knife and fork will make you want to cook a rib roast or ham. You will win over any steak or meat lover with the 6-piece steak knife set ($999), and you mix and match colors to create a custom set – you can even laser engrave initials or names onto the blades. There are fish and fillet sets, serrated bread knives, and much more from under a hundred bucks to thousands for big sets, something for every budget and every kind of food lover and cook on your list. Every time I make salmon, I look forward to taking out my New West fish spatula and admiring it, and you just don’t get that feeling from many kitchen utensils.

Fissler Non-Stick Cookware: For most of my lifetime, the promise of non-stick pans has exceeded the reality. Early models were flimsy and performed poorly at best, and at worst they were dangerous, shedding potentially poisonous ingredients into your food. Durability and safety have gotten better, but performance has lagged, and non-sticks have still languished behind every other kind of cookware in terms of quality, so I never found one I loved – until now. The highest rated brand of stainless-steel cookware by Consumer Reports, Fissler is a well-respected German manufacturer of precision cookware and pressure cookers, but it was their non-stick that wowed me, in particular the top-of-the-line Adamant Premium Non Stick Frying Pan. It eliminates every problem you have had with non-stick pans, and you can use metal tools, thanks to the extremely tough surface coating containing silicon carbide particles that is literally as hard as stone – it won’t come off. You can even put it in the dishwasher, and its steel base is for all cooking surfaces, including gas and ceramic, and is optimized for the now popular induction burners. It heats very evenly and retains heat almost like cast iron so you can turn the burner off and keep cooking or keep warm. It is heavy duty, with more durable rivet-less construction, and the clever pouring rim lets you pour out bacon grease or other liquids more neatly and safely. However, the bottom line is that it just cooks better, and is the first non-stick I’ve tried that lets you actually brown food well, and has been especially good with chopped onions, potatoes and such in a addition to meat. It also makes great fried eggs. I was skeptical, but I used it every day for over a week after I got mine and made everything from breakfast to burgers to crab cakes that came out just perfectly slightly browned and crisped. It comes in three sizes from 8-11 inches ($100-$130 but may be cheaper at Amazon), is an upgrade anyone who cooks will appreciate, and a good addition even to a full lineup of super high-end copper pots.

Zephyr Wine Fridge: Zephyr is a design and performance-oriented San Francisco company that specializes in just two things every great kitchen needs – wine/beverage refrigeration and high efficiency over stove exhaust fans. A fan is not a very practical gift but a wine and /or beverage fridge is, especially ones that can be either installed under counter or standalone in the garage, basement, rec room, home office, even the home gym. Zephyr makes several great options from a small single door beverage fridge to a space efficient double French door model that holds bottles of wine and champagne on one side and cans of beer or soda or bottled water on the other. There are taller multi-zone wine fridges for storing whites and reds at different temperatures in one unit, but what they all have in common is delivering the high-quality compressors and functions of a deluxe wine fridge missing in big box store models (vibration dampening, computer-controlled active cooling, dual-pane low-e argon filled glass doors) at a price point much more reasonable than the big “commercial” appliance brand names that in many cases expanded from stoves into other appliances. The thing is if you know someone who loves wine, they can never store too much, and some of these models would even hide away in a closet. The Zephyr Presrv French Door model (21 bottles plus 64 cans) is a top seller ($1800) but the full array runs from about $1250 to $3200 for a 24-inch wide, dual zone freestanding tower that holds 138 bottles.

Traeger Pellet Smoker To Go: Popularized by leading brand Traeger, pellet smokers and grills have been the biggest backyard cooking sensation in recent years, allowing even novices to quickly master the traditionally painstaking and difficult “low and slow” smoking that produces the best Southern barbecue, from ribs to brisket to pulled pork. Traeger introduced precision digital controls and thermostats to easily maintain low temperatures very accurately for hours and hours without fluctuation or fussing with vents while getting all the flavor that comes from burning your choice of real woods (mesquite, cherry, oak, apple, etc.), and they have become the best-known pellet smoker brand. But not everyone has a backyard or the capacity for a full-blown model, so the answer for the part-time BBQ fan on your list might well be the most portable fully featured pellet grill and smoker they make, the Ranger. The suitcase-like unit is highly portable, perfect for stadium tailgates, car camping, trips to the weekend vacation home or just taking out on the patio, balcony or into the courtyard. It features Traeger’s digital arc controller, built in meat probe, heavy duty porcelain coated grates and a cast iron searing/breakfast griddle. You can slow some a whole brisket, a full rack of ribs or a pork shoulder and you can grill on it too, a half dozen burgers or four big strip steaks. Perfect for two to six people, it has 176 square inches of cooking space and a generous 8-pound pellet hopper. It is also exceptionally affordable for a top shelf pellet smoker ($429).

Tramontina Square Roasting Pan: Sometimes what you look for in a gift is something unique, and that’s what drew my eye to this unusual square roasting pan from acclaimed Brazilian cookware specialist Tramontina. I mean it’s square, which right off the bat is different. They market it as ideal for casseroles, one pot dishes or side dishes and it is, but the one caveat is that an 11-inch square is bigger than it looks and bigger than its sounds, and it’s deep, so it’s a bit large for the cozy one pot meals for two I originally envisioned, and more like a one pot dish for four – but then again, who minds leftovers? The beauty is that it is both high quality and stylish, with a tri-ply clad constructing using premium 18/10 stainless steel around an aluminum core, so its heats quicky and evenly but works on all cooking surfaces including induction, it’s oven safe (but only to 350°, a little higher would be more useful) and most of all it is good looking enough to serve straight to the table, complete with  special little holder that let you remove the tempered glass lid and stand it up behind the pot for serving. Afterwards it is completely dishwasher safe, so what your recipient gets is a useful premium piece of cookware that is also great looking, functional and efficient for entertaining. It is especially good for any kind of communal event or portable meal where you are going to use a single portable induction burner. If you know someone who likes so host dinners, this will be appreciated ($105).

Fireboard Temperature System: For the dedicated backyard griller, smoker or anyone who likes a lot of tech in their cooking, FireBoard Labs specializes in cloud-connected smart thermometers and smoker controllers. Anyone cooking meat, poultry or seafood with any regularity should be using some kind of meat thermometer, but this is next level. The “basic” Fireboard 2 ($189) is a sort of mini-tablet with large LCD screen that comes with two meat probes and an ambient probe (for tracking oven, grill or smoker internal temperature), but can connect with up to six probes all together at the same time, ideal for someone cooking a big array of different products at once, whether in the oven or backyard grilling. The probes are on heatproof metal cables and plug into the unit, which connects to WiFi and has Bluetooth and apps for the popular smartphone platforms. The newest (shipping from November 29) member of the family is the FireBoard Spark ($149), a standalone instant read thermometer that also supports a leave in probe (optional $17).