My wife wants a classic Kenwood chef but i just want to check with you lot if theres anything better out there.

She bakes lots and would also like a food processor attachment which the Kenwood has.

Over to you 🙂

No there isn’t.
KitchenAid looks nicer, but Chef still rules.
IMHO, obviously

Kenwood Chef – my 48 year old Chef is still in regular use 😀

We’ve got a kitchenAid. Lots of attachments available, but at a ridiculous price. What annoys me is that in the US KitchenAid is fraction of the price. We just seem to be being ripped off. For that reason I would say go with the Kenwood.

I am a profesional chef by trade and i am currently repairing my kitchen aid as the worm gear strips it self under too much load (to save the motor) The replacement gear is $2.65 in America but £46.00 over here?
The cost £400 plus is crazy , they are great to look at and just the same as the £265 Kenwood , try get a metal bodied ken wood if you can as the plastic ones feel cheap and flimsy . Get down a shop to lift and feel them touch ect . The last time i bought one for work i got a ken wood to save cash and 3 years later its fine .

Can’t go wrong with a kenwood. Parents have one that is approx. 40 years old that hasn’t gave any trouble. We now have a modern day equivalent and hope for it to last just as long.

We have kitchen aid that was bought at least 19 years ago. It has stripped its worm gear on us, but part was cheap. It wore out bushes, again cheap part. It is designed to take apart, clean, grease and fix. Great machine.

Not worth the £400 though, ours was ex John Lewis display and was about £100 iirc.

My mother inherited her mother’s Kenwood. Still going very strong.

I wouldn’t be without my own. My children can squabble over who inherits their grandmother’s.

If she def needs a food processor then a Kenwood Chef is the way to go.

I would have said that the KC is the mutts nuts full stop but I was killing mine doing bread dough so after xmas I bought the daddy of all worktop mixers – a Hobart N50:

They are the smallest mixer Hobart make and it’s almost indestructible. No variable speed motor and crappy cast gears, Hobarts have a single speed motor (so it can be smaller and more efficient) with a 3 speed gearbox made from proper forged gears that will really last your lifetime + a lot more.
Bigger than the Kitchen Aid, it’s domestic cousin, the N50 weighs in at about 30kg and is doesn’t get flung around the worktop light the KA or KC (I literally had to lie on top of our KC to stop it flying around when mixing dough).
They are fairly simple inside so you can strip the gearbox, clean and regrease it every 10 years 🙂

Another advantage is that you can use pretty much all of the Kitchen Aid accessories on the N50 as the fitting on the front is the same size.

Obviously these things are expensive new, about £1700 + VAT, but I paid £315 for mine on eBay and they do come up at that price from time to time, so keep an eye open.

Best bit of kit I’ve bought in years, and will still be worth the same in another 15 years.

Oh yeah, many people like to customise them!

get one of these:

http://www.nisbets.co.uk/KitchenAid-Heavy-Duty-Mixer-White/CA986/ProductDetail.raction

Its more powerful than the “Professional” (has a 500w rather than the 325W in the pro) is almost silent and produces MUCH BETTER results than a Kenwood Chef, which is what we replaced.

Oh and shop around we bought ours for considerably less than that AND it came with a free 4 slot kitchenaid artisan toaster!