For Gaggenau’s 333rd anniversary, the luxury appliance manufacturer has released a new version of its 300 Series oven.

This new release, the Gaggenau EB333, maintains the simple yet luxurious style of the earlier EB 300 Series while adding some new details such as a touch interface, a redesigned handle and an impressive grade of fit and finish.

One of the most elusive appliances on the planet, each EB333 is built by hand.

Gaggenau 36″ Oven Review

As you would expect, the Gaggenau EB 333 oven is primarily handmade (and yes, it still features that distinctive cobalt coating around the door). In fact, the door itself is forged from a single piece of stainless steel.

Thanks to its ultra-high quality and self-close mechanism, you would never notice that the door weighs 40 pounds — at least, not until you observe the unit’s remarkable heat retention.

Attention to Detail

Gaggenau has thought of every detail in crafting this new release, making it a true joy to use. It does as much of the work as possible for you, leaving you to enjoy the creative process of making food rather than worry about the details of your oven’s function.

Beautifully crafted round metal knobs and a touch capacitive screen just scream luxury.

For example, you won’t strain to see what’s in the oven, as the diagonal lights help illuminate food from any angle. We have to say, this feature makes a huge difference in the way the food looks when you’re cooking. It comes at dramatic effect during demonstration and we do not understand why some of other top-tier appliance manufacturers haven’t yet thought of hitting interior cavities with far more lighting as well.

The single, large convection fan rotates in both directions to help ensure even cooking; you won’t need to worry about turning your food around partway through the baking time. While a tried and true design, we would have liked to see Gaggenau’s R&D come up with an improved convection method, much like Wolf has tried to do with their Verticross system in their M Series ovens.

The pyrolytic cleaning system and heated catalyser ensure that the surfaces and air within the EB 333 stay clean with minimal effort on your part.

Temperature Control

The temperature allows for exceptional precision with 5-degree increments ranging from 50 degrees Celsius (around 120 Fahrenheit) to 200 degrees Celsius (around 575 Fahrenheit).

Whether you want to gently culture yogurt or bake a pizza at professional-level temperatures (often around 550 degrees), this Gaggenau is ready to comply. The oven comes with dual rotisserie spits for roasting up to two birds at the same time.

Temperature read out on the LED display keeps the Chef informed.

The actual temperature display means you’ll never need to worry about compensating for an oven that runs too hot or too cold.

Best of all — at least for those days when you’re hungry enough to want food with minimal wait times — the EB 333 has a rapid heating function to get things baking as soon as possible.

Precision

Speaking of precision, the Gaggenau EB 333 oven offers 17 different heating methods that help you control exactly how you cook.

Whether you want more heat on the top or bottom of the oven, to use a baking stone for even high-temperature cooking, or just gentle heat for keeping food warm or proofing dough, there’s a method designed to meet that purpose.

This helps take the guesswork out of baking and ensures a consistent, reliable result every time.

Here, a Chef prepares two separate pizzas on a pizza stone.

Exclusivity and Price

Unfortunately for those smitten with this oven already, it’s not all that easy to get your hands on. It won’t be available for purchase until March 2017. Even then, you won’t be able to just go out and buy one.

Because these ovens are so labor intensive and of such exquisite, hand-crafted quality, there’s a very limited supply and they’re hard to come by.

As for the pricing, well… as the saying goes, if you have to ask it’s likely not for you. Each unit is hand-built in Germany and they can only produce so many each year. It’s a rare and hard appliance to get your hands on.  With that said, we expect to see this selling for well north of $6,000.

In Conclusion

This oven is a rare and elusive beast. Nothing will elicit more conspiracy theories as to your net worth and masonic ties as proudly displaying this oven in your Kitchen. That being said, as far as a pure cooking power goes, this is one of those cases where spending all that money is not going to get you any better results or longevity.

Pros

• Has the presence and showmanship of the latest Rolls Royce
• Fit and finish is second to none. The giant, single piece door, reeks of attention to craft.
• While not exclusive to Gaggenau, this particular Cobalt interior is stunning under the angled lights.
• Built to order, with extreme exclusivity, you don’t see one very often.

Cons

• While the exterior is 36″, the interior oven is still only 30″, with much smaller capacity than other 36″ ovens on the market. Like Wolf’s 36″ Oven for example.
• For actual cash to value, this oven comes crashing down to earth. Price keeps going up while design has remained mostly unchanged for over 20 years.
• No steam option? Really?!
• Customer service and repair network here in the U.S.A. is lacking for the price level of these products.