GE Cafe Couture Oven with Air Fry review, tried and tested

The Café Couture Oven, a new all-in-one tabletop oven from GE’s Café Premium Appliance Series, offers the convenience of a number of different appliances – it can do things like bake, roast, toast and even air fryer – in a sleek, compact design. No brains for those with smaller kitchens. And, it looks gorgeous doing it all.

I’ve been using the Café Couture Oven in my kitchen for a few weeks now, instead of Wolf Gourmet Elite Oven Counters. And despite some minor flaws, I’m pleased with how well Café Couture Oven works. Here’s what you need to know if you’re considering making room on your countertop for this stylish and functional kitchen appliance.

Aside from looking great, the oven cooks well, heats up quickly and evenly, and offers a wide range of options. While many basic toaster ovens have simple cooking modes like bake, toast, and toast, some more expensive models like the my Wolf oven offer proof, reheat, bake, grill, and bake. bread as well as baking. The Café Couture Oven covers all of this with 14 different cooking modes including my favorite, the “crunchy finish” mode that I use to cook fish and vegetables.

In the past, I’ve often stuck bread and bagels in my stand-alone toaster, as I’ve had some less than excellent experiences with previous toasters. Only one side would be baked or it would take three “toasting” cycles to really get it to my liking, so I was amazed at how Café Couture performed this most basic function. Thanks to four elements at the top and two at the bottom, baking and baking in the Café Couture Oven produces even temperatures and results.

I especially like using the “crunchy finish” for vegetables that brown after they’ve roasted. You can cook it well, but it tends to cook too quickly and sometimes splatters, so I prefer this mode.

The oven’s dial-style controls are easy to use. I like that the settings are displayed on the easy-to-read LCD at the top of the oven and that I don’t have to squint or take out my glasses to read the words on the dial. This is my first experience with an oven with controls mounted above the door (as they will be on a full-size oven) and I prefer this placement over the lower dials and settings. on the front panel, to the right of the door. , like on the Breville and Wolf table-top oven.

The watch faces show the cooking mode, temperature and cooking time if you are using the timer. There’s also a progress bar display at the bottom to show how close you are to the desired temperature when you’re preheating.

The oven has 0.8 cubic feet of cooking space, which is slightly smaller than other high-end models like Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro or Wolf Countertop Oven that I use, but still big enough to make a 12-inch pizza, grill a whole chicken, and cook with a 9 x 13 grill or pan.

All that space is enough for 2 racks – there’s plenty of room to cook a piece of fish on one rack while vegetables cook on the rack below, making it easy to prepare dinner.

If you are looking to experiment with different cooking styles, this is very simple. It comes with an Air Fry basket as well as a 12-inch pizza pan, wire rack, and baking tray. But unlike the Breville Smart Oven Pro, which has lines on the oven to show you which rack to use for each cooking mode, you’ll have to read the instructions on the Café Couture Oven. The display shows you which of the three rack positions to use for each cooking mode.

For example, for air frying, you would use the basket in the middle rack position, but for reheating or slow cooking, you should place the bottom rack.

I tried different cooking modes and found that the oven wasn’t perfect (my veggies weren’t always crispy enough) most things were still tasty enough. It maintains the temperature and cooks the food evenly. It’s great for reheating food, baking and cooking multiple things at once.

The surprisingly quiet air fryer cooks at 400 to 450 higher temperatures, but since I’m used to the deeper baskets of the stand-alone air fryers, it took a while to get used to the shallow baskets. of the Café oven (more on that below).

The salmon is crispy on the outside, moist on the inside, and cooked evenly. The same goes for reheating leftovers. I can reheat cooked chicken in about 10 minutes without drying out.

One of the best things about using Café Couture Oven is how quickly it heats up and how little it gives off. For anyone who hates burning a large stove in super hot weather, this is a godsend.

While cleaning the oven is never a fun idea for anyone, the removable rack system and pull-out crumb tray give you easy access to sturdy, internal components. drips and splashes.

You can put the rack, basket, and pan in the dishwasher, but I prefer hand washing with soapy water. The crumb tray needs to be washed by hand.

Can we talk about the style of this oven? Not anyone is going to spend $499 on a countertop oven just for the looks, but this one REALLY looks good.

Most countertop ovens are short and wide, but this design is taller and narrower than most. This makes it more present in the kitchen, standing a full two inches taller than my Wolf oven. It also has gently rounded corners and a soft curved design.

With a height of 14 inches, you need to make sure there is enough space between the bottom of the kitchen cabinets and the top of the oven, and this height may not be suitable for all stoves. Which means, being about three inches narrower than my Wolf, it takes up less dimensional space.

Café Couture Oven is available in Matte Black, Matte White and Stainless Steel finishes with polished brass knobs and door handles. I opted for the stainless steel finish and it looks almost like rose gold, which pairs beautifully with my other stainless steel appliances. However, the two-tone finish and rounded edges also give it a stylish, modern design that looks great in any kitchen.

There are a few small questions I have with Café Couture Oven but none of them are deal breakers.

I’m used to a standalone air fryer, which has a deeper basket with tighter weave, so I usually stir food with a spoon or shake as it cooks. Cafe’s Couture, and most countertop ovens that double as air fryers, use a shallow basket with larger holes. This meant that in addition to the unexpected mess from small pieces of food that fell through the basket, I had to use a fork or a set of tongs to reposition things like cauliflower to get it brown and crispy.

And for anyone who’s used to adding salt and other seasonings directly to their food inside an air fryer, you’ll have to consider seasoning and seasoning foods ahead of time to limit the amount of time you need to cook them. drips and spills out. However, I’ve noticed that anything that lands on the hot coils will quickly burn out – although you’ll have to power up some smoke first.

One option my editor pointed out is to line the bottom of the oven (drip pan pulls out completely for cleaning) with tin foil to make it easier to clean up spills.

This smart oven connects to Wi-Fi for smartphone remote control and easy access to recipes in the app. But I was having trouble connecting and finally had to call for help. Once we figured it out and started using the app, I was able to turn the oven lights on/off and see the oven’s status (on or off) as well as program the cooking mode. But once I had selected the mode, temperature, and set the timer, I still had to press the actual “start” button on the oven to enable the remote start. This seems counter-intuitive.

Most smart devices require a WiFi connection and I appreciate that product updates and new features can be pushed as over-the-air updates through the app, but I don’t think that the current state of smart features adds much, making me wonder if the oven needs to be connected.

The Café Couture Oven is a stylish appliance that will save space in the kitchen by combining cooking and air frying features. It does 14 different cooking modes and all of them work well.

You can get better performance on individual recipes or foods from a standalone, single-function appliance like an air fryer or slow cooker, but if you’re short on space and want a a beautiful appliance that can replace many ovens will not let you down.