What's cooking? Our hottest picks of hobs and stovetops
A hob from the Miele KMDA range, top left, Ikea Lagan, right, and a Domino hob, below left.
When refreshing your kitchen, building anew or completely ripping out and replacing your hob is a vital component for a successful kitchen. From venting hobs to flexible zones, learn what to look for, the latest intelligent design and how to make this appliance buy, your hottest yet.
Let’s look at types before examining what you might get for a middling or top spend this AW. When you approach buying an independent, standalone hob or a cooker with a top face of cooking rings, you’ll be faced with four types.
The top choices for speed, finesse and versatility will always be good old, real flame gas, followed by the wonders of induction plates. The close, worthy runners-up are ceramic and traditional sealed plate hobs (which replaced open elements), which offer tempting affordability.
Starting with gas, which can be delivered by a mains gas supply, LPG canisters and domestic back-garden tanks. This is without doubt a cook’s choice.
Trimming the flame in split-seconds using chunky dial controls, gas may be a fossil fuel, but it has instant ignition to full power, and serves up an even performance across the base of a good pan. There is considerable heat loss cooking with gas, but some users see this as part of its wintertime advantages, together with its relative economy from the national supply, compared to peak usage kWs of electricity between 5pm and 7pm.
Prices are attractive starting at €200 for 1kW-2.5kW capable, four-burner hob (including a wok-burner), rising to €2,250 for gas over glass commercial grade, 88cm cast-iron tops with five burners and enamelled cast-iron pot rests. Look for models that allow their pot rests to be blasted clean in the dishwasher.
Ikea's Lagan is a perfect entry point for a budget kitchen or as an extra cooking surface to stave off the annoyance of power cuts. Styled as a possible Bosch dupe, it's 59cm, with four burners, standard safety inclusions and two simple lift-off pan supports, €129, ikea.com/ie. Bosch is a favourite, and I’m going with its handsome, matt black, Series 6, 90cm hob BSH PPS9A6B90 with five cooking zones and up to 4kW of cooking muscle. Bio-methane-ready, it comes in standard and semi-flush built-in options. It's €735, various suppliers.
Induced to change? Induction rings are a marvel of modern technology, with almost-instant heating to the ring, smooth surfaces that are a cinch to clean, and dedicated, efficient touch-control guiding an electromagnetic field. Power is transferred directly via copper-wire coils, into the base of a magnetic pan and straight through to the foods.
As the rest of the hob surface remains cool to the touch, induction hobs are a winner for families with curious children who won’t be told. With no pan in place for a time, they also switch off automatically. Induction cooking can automatically trace across a set element, mapping larger and smaller pans with flexible zone-cooking. When the pan is removed the plate cools (it will still have some heat, we’re not on the Star Ship Enterprise).
Induction hobs are the most environmentally friendly hob choice but as you’ll discover with one lap of a large electrical outlet, they are the most expensive hobs and demand cookware with ferromagnetic bases. Prices range wildly from €300 for a 60cm model by budget line Candy to over €4,700 for a 90cm German aristocrat, Smeg.
Siemens Intelligent sensors that stick right to the pans are a nice addition to a Bluetooth-ready hob that monitors and regulates temperatures; from €192, multiple suppliers. If you have a pacemaker — talk to your doctor before installing an induction hob.
Check out the Smeg 65cm classic built-in induction and gas hob PM3643D. Combine your passion for efficient performance and classic gas cooking. It has an induction zone (used single or in two areas) with two traditional gas burners over ceramic glass and offers 90cm and 75cm widths. One of two rare induction/gas choices, €1529, harveynorman.ie.
Right in the middle of the pack, the 62cm surface or flush-fit Miele KM 7363 FL offers that flexible area for large cookware, quick selection with Miele’s Key-bank, five induction zones, and communication with an intelligent Miele drafting hood (option); €1,149, miele.ie.
Electric performance will always have a lag when turned up or down compared to gas, but dedicated, digital control means no flabby turns of a mechanical wheel that could ruin a meal. Even heat delivery, without hot spots, will mark out a good induction or ceramic model, and guarantee disappointment in a cheaper buy.
Ceramic stoves have the same streamlined look of an induction hob, without the grot-catching pan-supports of a gas stove, or tiny fissure of a cheap sealed-ring hob (impossible to find except in plug-ins).
Remember, ceramic, radiant hobs are a different animal from induction hobs, slower to coax boils and simmers, heating the entire ring beneath the protective top plate and much of the surrounding surface. A light system can ensure that it’s clear when the rings are in use, preventing accidents common to early sealed-plate hobs.
Prices range from €220 to around €450 for a 60cm model, with double-ring zone and keep-warm functions demanding a slight premium.
I’m impressed by the ergonomic fanned left-to-right styling of the Klarstein Virtuosa 90cm glass ceramic hob. If you can spare the extra counter room it delivers touch control, with 6400 watts and nine power levels; €334, hifi-tower.ie.
If you’re just looking for a couple more rings to beef out your cooking zone, two ceramic rings might do the job. Bosch’s 30cm Domino plate (again in that Series 6) includes 17 cooking levels, a memory function and Sprint Cook when you’re in a hurry; from €423 depending on suppliers including habitium.ie.
If your budget confines you to ceramic hobs or even a sealed-plate style, it’s important to match your pans to your hob plate sizes as closely as possible, so hold off buying a set until you have the hob in place. Both ceramic and induction hobs can scratch and demand expensive repairs if damaged. Don’t drag pans over their surface, lift them and replace.
When weighing up a ceramic hob against an induction (a 50% loading would be typical to induction depending on the brand), keep in mind that the increased energy efficiency and quick heat-up times of induction will have a pay-back reward over time.
It comes down to personal cooking preference (if you’re a gas lover), branding prestige, and of course, the budget you have to throw down in the showroom. It’s interesting to note that UK consumer guide in a test for both gas and induction, found that a gas hob took over 12 minutes to boil the same large pan that was chuckling after just under five minutes using induction (which.co.uk/reviews).
The 70% efficiency rate would be typical with a ceramic top, and 90% would not be unusual in an induction. Don’t make any assumptions and pour over real customer reviews online for precious feedback in the slings and arrows of ordinary use in a family kitchen.
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