Hot off the kitchen catwalk: Our top oven choices

We select the next top models among the latest quality and affordable ovens for new and renovated kitchens

Side by side or stacked, Siemens remains the top choice in many kitchen builds and renovations. Ensure you select each oven including microwaves, based on its individual merits.

When we are checking out built-in single ovens in the showroom, it can seem as if we’re watching a parade of very similarly styled 60cm black boxes. What’s really on offer behind that glittering fascia? Here’s just some of what you might enjoy at the top and middling areas of the market right now in traditional ovens that can be used alone or paired seamlessly with other single, combinations, or specialist buys for microwaving, steaming and more.

Siemens is a solid German prestige brand, and its ovens are often served as a first choice by kitchen suppliers in a single or double oven. Technologies at Siemens don’t change year on year, as the company is a pioneer in appliances. Its app-connected detailing, TFT touch displays in vibrant imagery, automated baking and roasting settings, and time prediction (Cook Control Pro) are fuss-free, proven winners.

If you dread the chore, there are two self-cleaning options to leave the oven sparkling with minimal muscle from you. First are pyrolytic (heat-based) programs that bring the cavity to a high temperature, incinerating grease and splashes, and allowing you to sweep out the dusty residue. The second is a humid clean (water-based), which is perfect for a slightly less awful oven mess, using water, detergent, evaporation, and condensation to shift hard-to-clean grease, burnt-on food, and fat-spatter. All you do is add a drop of cleaner to 400ml of water. All Siemens ovens carry EcoClean, a surface coating that breaks down the muck, and then, when clean, regenerates for the next assault.

What marks out Siemens’ more pricey ovens is enhanced camera options. These include extra sweeteners beyond Voice Assist, like browning control using the latest Artificial Intelligence (AI) programming. The camera linked to your HomeConnect takes images, “recognises” the foodstuffs, and evaluates the timing and temperature based on your browning choices. The camera also lets you check your dishes from anywhere, using your smartphone. If you bake bread and love your Sunday joint, choose a model with Siemens’ Pulse Steam. This adds a little vapour to the cavity to bring home beautiful crusts and crackling. Prices for a good single oven by Siemens with most of what you need and Voice Assist through the universal HomeConnect app start around €1,400 for the Q700 HB778G3B1B from Harvey Norman. A top-of-the-line (and rarer) iQ700 HN978GQB1B with camera, microwave facility and full-steam is priced at €3329, siemens-home.bsh-group.com/ie.

Bosch can offer much of what Siemens does for a more budget-friendly outlay. With Bosch we’re looking over the 4, 6 and 8 range, and these ovens rise in price and complexity with the series number starting at an entry level of 2. I’m impressed that Bosch offers its sturdy, practical range right out of the oven in its flagship website pages. Here you get all the lovely clunk-click of an excellent German-engineered oven with a superb, prestige look, but honed down to everyday needs. This includes pop-out controls for a sleek front, slim universal pans (supplied) optimised for smaller dishes, halogen lighting, child-proof locks and its eco-clean facility with micro-spheres that break down as you bake or roast, and hydro-clean. Bosch oven trays are also sized to slide straight onto a Bosch fridge shelf. Brilliant.

This is a modern fan-assisted oven, and you can enjoy seven heating methods including Bosch’s 3D Hotair, top and bottom heat, Hotair grilling, full width variable grill, a pizza function, and Hotair Gentle for delicate one-shelf cooking. HBS534BS0B, Series-4 priced from just €449, various suppliers.

For all the app-connected toys, motor past the excellent Series 6 to Series 8, Bosch’s premium range. The HBG6764S6B is expensive for a single oven, but not as expensive as a Siemens of the same stature. I found models from €1259 on offer at a couple of suppliers. There’s no camera, but there’s a lovely, intuitively designed digital-control ring for delicate, one-finger shifts, a full-surface, high-resolution, plain-text TFT screen, and direct select buttons with information and texts.

Series 8 is the Bosch premier line, shown here in a microwave/oven stack of two Home Connect-operated 60cm ovens.

The sensors typical of all Bosch ovens cover both humidity and temperature with exquisite performance. As for smarts, on top of just asking the cavity to get on with, for instance, “Scones” Series 8 ovens serve up oven assist. Just introduce your oven to your registered Home Connect account and select your recipe via the app or your Amazon Alexa using voice control. Your oven will instantly suggest the most suitable settings or programs, and switch directly to the recipe, automating any changes needed in temperature over the timing of the cook.

Series 6, Bosch Advanced models are app-connected, they just offer fewer programs like Perfect Roast and Perfect Bake, but there’s still 40 on-the-spot automatic (AutoPilot) programs to play with. Prices for Series 6 models start at €900.

If it’s steam cooking you’re after in a combination oven that also carries out typical oven duties, Neff and AEG are great choices as they really have both championed this technique and integrated it into many of their latest ovens.

The AEG 8000 Steamify ovens are my choice with their built-in steaming feature that cooks your food in a healthy way that preserves more of the nutritional value than boiling or roasting. The oven can adjust the level of steam automatically.

The 8000 range also has a new convection system from AEG Hot Air, which circulates warmth evenly throughout the cavity, heating it faster and saving up to 20% on what can be a kW munching exercise, and cutting back as much as 40% on the time needed to get to your chosen temperature.

These handsome 70l ovens are nicely bright with an inclined flood-light and offer base-heating if you just want to keep things warm. Top and bottom heating is something to watch out for in the latest ovens, as is choosing individual elements, as it adds meaningful versatility.

AEG’s integrated thermometer (on a leash in the oven) has proved a hit since its introduction in 2023. It needs to be set up correctly, but the food probe works off core temperature, guiding how long your dish should stay in the oven; AEG BSE782380M with steam function, €1500.

An also-ran, for the benefits of steam cooking on a tight budget, HiSense offers steam functions with air fryer functions in a whopping 77l oven at budget prices from €299 for the BSA65222AXUK (various suppliers).

Neff oven with FullSteam. Looking for steam functions? Examine LG and AEG at the top end and HiSense in the budget divisions of built-in ovens.

Back in four figures, Neff’s N90 Built-in Single Oven with Added Steam delivers its much-loved Hide-n-Slide door and highly personalised cooking with syncing capabilities for HomeConnect; Neff B64VS71G0B from €1577.

Intuitive, accurate ovens are not hard to find for less than €1,000. Explore other Hotpoint, Beko, Smeg and other B-class competitors before cracking out the credit card.

Examine how you like to cook, and don’t pay hundreds more for something like sous-vide capabilities if you are unlikely to ever use that feature. When choosing any combination with a microwave or air-fryer function, ensure its performance will deliver as a traditional roasting and grilling device first.

Customer reviews on platforms including Trustpilot will dish up the good and the bad without a side serving of the maker’s oily marketing prose. Concentrate on feedback from keen cooks who have tried multiple methods with the ovens over several months of use, as this is when any problems from culinary hassles to creaky hinges and unreliable sensors will have made themselves obvious.

When handling very cheap ovens, you’ll detect the difference with rattling knobs and tinny closing mechanisms. There tends to be less attention to detail. Showroom ovens, roughed around by shoppers, can often start to show up this sly wear and ropey build quality. This is very telling about the unit’s potential longevity. So, go on, have a feel.