Samsung's fancy new Chef Collection range now cooks with gas

Craving a new stove and oven combo and are willing to spend a cool $3,000 on it? If so Samsung feels its Chef Collection Slide-In Gas Range has what it takes to satisfy. A fresh edition to the company's Chef Collection line of premium kitchen appliances, this $2,900 cooktop offers the time-honored performance of five real gas burners. The range also boasts a large split-level oven controlled by an intelligent touchscreen, all wrapped up into a luxurious stainless steel design.

Design and features

The first thing you'll notice about the Slide-In Gas Range is its sophisticated look. Almost every surface of this piece of hardware gleams in reflective stainless steel. I also like the stove's heavy duty burner grates and grill pan which all feel sturdy and well-made.

The grill pan is an especially welcome feature since it not only uses a dedicated oval burner, it's reversible too. One side serves as a flat plancha for cooking up pancakes, bacon, shrimp, you name it, while the other is ridged to handle sausages, burgers, and veggies. Another nice attribute of the Chef Collection range is the front right-most burner which is rated at a scorching 18,000 BTUs. Samsung proudly pointed out that this level of heat, along with the included Wok ring stand, makes for a more restaurant caliber of stir fry.

The front face of the range houses a total of six large knobs each controlling one of the five gas burners. The sixth control handles temperature and basic functions of the warming drawer located under the oven door. Samsung touts the prowess of the big, 5.8-cubic ft. oven too, which it claims can operate within 8 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celsius) of accuracy as opposed to the wilder swings it says are common to ordinary household ovens.

Additionally, this oven also has the Flex Duo design we saw in an electric oven we saw from Samsung last year. That means you can split the cooking chamber into two separate baking regions, essentially functioning at different temperatures. The idea here being to cook off two radically divergent dishes, say, a pie up top and a roast down below. Last year's model maintained temperatures, and also kept aromas separate, so hopefully the new model will work just as well. To command the oven there's a nifty touchscreen control panel, termed the Guiding Light by Samsung, which only displays menu info pertaining to the task at hand.

Outlook

There's no doubt that the Samsung Chef Collection Slide-In Gas Range is an impressive stove and oven combo. Likewise its modern metal styling and quality materials would make a handsome addition to any home, even fully decked-out dream digs. The question remains whether almost $3,000 is really worth spending on a gas stovetop. Of course if all, or even some, of this Chef Collection model's features live up to the hype it just might be money well spent.