This new Smeg oven is a BBQ, air fryer and pizza oven in one

Italian appliances brand, Smeg has just revealed its latest Galileo oven range, featuring its new state-of-the-art cooking technology. With five different oven combinations to choose from, the Smeg Galileo range caters to all types of home chefs and budget types.

With the cost of living crisis hiking up energy prices, many people have chosen to use smaller appliances over the best ovens, mainly due to their higher running costs (see our air fryer vs multi-cooker vs oven for a full comparison). But this new oven technology from Smeg is designed to replace your other small and large appliances, including your barbecue, air fryer and pizza oven, while offering more precise cooking results.

Launching across five new combination models, including Omnichef, SteamOne, Steam100, Steam100PRO and SpeedwaveXL, the Galileo platform utilises a variety of cooking functions across the range, making it the world’s first oven to use traditional cooking methods together with steam and microwaving.

The new Galileo ovens deliver better browning and heat distribution than before, and its improved airflow system helps reduce flavour and smell transfer on each shelf. For example, if you’re strapped for time and need to cook multiple sweet and savoury dishes in your oven, you can do so without your cupcakes smelling like fish!

I recently visited Smeg HQ in Abingdon and got to see the new Smeg Galileo ovens in action. I was most impressed by the Omnichef, the range’s flagship model, which combines traditional, steam and microwave cooking. Available in multiple sizes, the interior of the Smeg Galileo Omnichef has been redesigned to allow for each cooking method to work independently or simultaneously.

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By combining traditional, steam and microwave cooking into one appliance, the Smeg Galileo Omnichef offers even browning, moisture and flavour retention, and incredibly speedy cooking times. Speaking of which, the Smeg Galileo Omnichef can cook a roast chicken in just 30 minutes – you might not believe me but I saw it with my own eyes, and it tasted delicious.

Aside from these three cooking methods, the Smeg Galileo Omnichef can do so much more, including replacing a lot of your other appliances. Compatible with multiple Galileo models, Smeg has designed tray inserts that fit inside your oven and offer different types of cooking.

While being given a tour of the showroom, I got to see three new tray inserts which can turn the Smeg Galileo Omnichef into a barbecue, air fryer and pizza oven. The barbecue insert preheats inside the oven, and once you add food directly to it, you get that signature sizzle sound, perfect charring and authentic grill mark, as you’d expect with the best barbecue.

As the best air fryers have taken over the kitchen, Smeg has also added an air fryer insert which offers a large cooking capacity, and super fast and even cooking. The insert I was most intrigued by was the refractory stone insert, a huge clay-looking tray that absorbs heat and acts like a pizza stone.

Will ovens be making a comeback in 2024? After seeing the Smeg Galileo Omnichef oven range, I think so! New Smeg ovens are available to buy now with prices ranging from £499 to £3,499.