Smeg Pro-Style Ranges Not So Hot

Smeg is an Italian appliance manufacturer that makes pro-style ranges, among other things. The name is short for Smalterie Metallurgiche Emiliane Guastalla, which sort of helps you understand why the company goes by Smeg. “Technology with style” is the company’s tagline so when the testers at Consumer Reports had to reach for a Sharpie to write common oven temperature settings near the knobs of the Smeg ranges in our tests, things started to get really interesting.

We tested the $3,000 Smeg C30GGXU1 30-inch gas range and the $3,200 Smeg C36GGXU 36-inch gas range. Those prices are low by pro-style standards; if only the performance was better. The Smeg C30GGXU1 scored 45 out of 100. The oven is small, there’s no self-clean feature, and baking and broiling were unimpressive. Range-top heat was fast, but we were unable to simmer tomato sauce on the largest burner when it was set to low.

The Smeg C36GGXU was even worse and landed at the bottom of our ratings of 36-inch pro-style ranges, scoring 23 out of 100. “Some previously tested pro-models have floundered in our tests, so while the Smeg scores are disappointing, they aren’t shocking,” says Tara Casaregola, the engineer who oversees Consumer Reports’ tests of cooking appliances. “What was kind of shocking to us was the design of the oven controls, if these models are intended for the U.S. market.”

Casaregola used a Sharpie to mark off temperature settings we needed—325°F on the smaller range and 350°F on the larger (or choose from 285°, 330°, 390°F and up). No matter how neatly you print, writing with a Sharpie on the front of one of these ranges cheapens the look. And the unusual oven timer knob has five-minute intervals, up to an hour, with a quick buzz alerting you that time’s up. It reminded us of an old wind-up egg timer.

Shopping for a Pro-Style?

We did find some winners. The KitchenAid KDRS407VSS was the best of the 30-inch models we tested and made our top-picks list. It’s $4,000 and is a dual-fuel range, pairing a gas cooktop with a small electric oven. Among 36-inch pro-styles, the dual-fuel KitchenAid KDRU763VSS is tops and $6,000. We also recommend the $7,500 GE Monogram ZDP364NDPSS. See our full range Ratings and recommendations for all the details. Any questions? E-mail me at kjaneway@consumer.org.

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