Modern & minimal kitchen appliances to help millennial home cooks unleash their inner MasterChef!
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There’s something about cooking and millennials that simply does not sit right! Try as you may, they don’t always mix well. Although cooking is a skill we do need to include in our repertoire of skills. And I did manage to do it successfully in the midst of a global pandemic! From a chore that I completely avoided, cooking has now become a therapeutic activity for me. But I do believe, that besides a natural knack and tons of trial and error, the perfect set of kitchen appliances is needed to master the art of cooking. And, to help all those millennials out there, who simply cannot perfect the Herculean feat of cooking – we’ve curated a collection of modern and minimal kitchen appliances that promise to be their ultimate lifesaver. From a Japanese wood-fired bbq grill to a 3-in-1 cooking appliance that includes a stove, a convection oven, and a grill with magnetic skewers – these products can reduce your prep time in half, make the little cooking tasks much easier, and help you with tedious and complicated techniques. They make cooking effortless and easy. Enjoy!
The lead designer of the project, Seiki Ishii closely analyzed the dynamics of city living without compromising on the cooking of mouthwatering rotisserie, churrasco steak, or grilling the fresh salmon sushi from the market. This cross-cultural cooking space results in an elegant and compact BBQ grill that brings home the style of Spanish and Brazilian BBQ grilling. One that is dominated by wood burnt in the chimney to create a constant fire for the most evenly cooked delicacies. Called the BBQ&co Grill, this minimalist barbeque grill comes with an accompanying baking table that can be customized as per the cooking needs. Continuous and even cooking is the highlighting USP of this wood-fired grill which is further honed by its ultra-modern design perfect for urban homes.
A winner of the iF Design Award as well as the Golden Pin Design Award, the ATONCE is a compact, portable 5-in-1 coffee machine that can fit right in your pocket. The ATONCE coffee maker is a thermos-sized device that comes with its own kettle, bean-grinder, pour-over filter, and coffee mug. Compact enough so you can carry it around with you in your bag, backpack, or even in a baggy pocket, ATONCE helps you brew barista-grade coffee with your favorite beans wherever you are, in under 5 minutes. Its multi-part design has a kettle for pouring water, an adjustable ceramic-burr motorized bean-grinder, a double-mesh stainless steel filter, a vacuum-insulated coffee cup, and a sipper-lid, packaging every coffee-making appliance in a nifty, compact form.
Ugo is a portable, two-part induction stovetop that helps blind people navigate cooking through haptic dials and an overall ergonomic build. At the center of Ugo’s design, Famin incorporated a chunky stove dial that clicks into place when turned to the right. The size of the stove dial enhances the stove’s ergonomic design by guiding the user’s sense of touch to the stovetop’s main power function. Famin’s stovetop also implements wide, easy-to-grip handles, ensuring safe carrying and boosting the stove’s tactile attributes. Ugo also recites step-by-step recipes to users, weaving in the sense of hearing to aid blind people’s experience in the kitchen. This addition allows room for users to engage with the cookware and accessories already in their kitchen and get cooking while Ugo narrates each step along the way.
Meet the Oblige, an entertainment space where homeowners can depict their personal traits by customizing the modular appliance to their individual lifestyle or living space. The modular cafe intends to go beyond the idea of the basic functions the appliances in your kitchen perform. The designers behind Oblige feel setting up a café at home is inconvenient for now because it’s not easy to set up space with all the appliances required. Connecting them all to water and electrical sources is another headache. Simply thinking of brewing a good coffee – you need a list of appliances – from your coffee grinder, the pod-maker, espresso brewer, milk frother, and more, depending on your choice! Oblige lets the user select and combine an appliance (ice maker, soda maker, water purifier, coffee grinder, espresso machine, kettle, and oven) as per their convenience and preference. If the need arises, users can combine more modules to cater to their extended demand while retaining visually similar aesthetics.
Meet the Wooly Eco-Friendly Cooler, an outdoor cooler that uses eco-friendly wool (as opposed to chemical insulants) to keep your cool drinks cool… and as an added bonus, it comes with a lid that doubles up as a charcuterie board so you can pair your wine with a few cold cuts of meat and some eclectic cheeses, or your beers with some chips and dip and a couple of cocktail nuts too! The Wooly is touted to be one of the only recyclable coolers available today, made from an outer casing of aluminum and stainless steel instead of plastic. It’s also the first consumer-grade cooler to use wool as an insulating material, instead of synthetic foam.
Decker is an all-electric appliance so grilling on it is devoid of fossil fuels like coal. It creates a smokeless experience which is perfect for an urban kitchen or a balcony. Young millennials and Gen Z have little access to the experience of cooking food on a grill. Using a BBQ grill indoors only creates a fire hazard but most living quarters don’t allow them because of the smoke and soot which can be bothersome in cities where people are often living too close to one another. “We worked to understand the core user and their daily habits, likes, and dislikes as well as the environment in which the product is likely to be used. Using a bunch of observational research as well as qualitative questions, we were able to get a ton of insights into how we can move away from the traditional kitchen appliance,” said the team.
Designed to be virtually the Swiss Army Knife of travel mugs, the hodi has a unique two-part design that splits into two separate glasses – one for hot drinks, another for cold drinks. It even comes with an air-tight lid that doubles up as a container for snacks and has a mesh filter for brewing drinks in. The hodi works with coffee, tea, juices, milkshakes, beer, wine, soft drinks, and potentially even protein drinks, and above all, it’s just as portable as most normal travel mugs. It all starts with hodi’s unique design that’s reminiscent of the iconic Guinness beer glass. With its curvy, tapered design, hodi ensures that its functional experience translates brilliantly into an aesthetic one too. Carry hodi around and it doesn’t look like an overly engineered thermos, it looks like one of the most iconic beverage glasses ever.
The black-box-looking design looks almost like a gadget from the Black Mirror, with its sleek and minimal aesthetics – and it packs a punch! This one appliance combines five major functionalities – grill, simmer, poach, fry or steam! Dubbed The Tastemaker, the tagline goes as ” Tradition and innovation together present a breakthrough for restaurant kitchens. Carbon graphite fused with the wisdom of Japanese cuisine create a product unprecedented in culinary history.” Why Carbon Graphite? It’s a material that is lighter than iron, used for replacement and specialty parts. When prepared properly, it has wear resistance, high-temperature capabilities, self-lubricating properties, and the ability to be used with corrosive materials. This cube delivers superior heat retention with the capability to emit five times more infrared than cast iron. The design is compatible with all heating sources – induction heat, gas, and even the oven!
Ordine is an innovative cooking solution designed for the modern user. Optimized for small spaces, the design eliminates the need for a bulky traditional stove, clearing the way for more cabinet and counter space. The design features two hob units that are mounted on a central power hub on the wall. Elevated neatly out of the way, the user must simply grab one or both hobs off the wall and set the desired temperature to activate. Clad in materials consisting of natural wood and copper, the design not only saves valuable kitchen real estate but is made to complement your interior aesthetic on display.
Though this isn’t a kitchen appliance, consider this a little added bonus to your cooking adventures, from us! What if your pasta could lie flat and occupy less shape when packaged, and morph into its desired shape when cooking? As odd as that design brief may sound, scientists at Carnegie Mellon University and Zhejiang University City College are trying to figure out how to make pasta more ‘efficient’. Sure, it may give a couple of traditional Italian cooks and nonnas a panic attack, but hey… science does what science does, right? The new pasta shapes are a combination of familiar and absolutely out-of-the-box forms, all calibrated to do two jobs – holding the sauce and tasting fabulous. Some of them are loosely based on popular designs like garganelli, fusilli, and ziti, while other shapes completely redefine the cuisine with how they look… with one clear distinction, creating a pasta that starts off as a flat, scored sheet of dough that transforms into a 3D shape when cooked.
