Smeg Review - 50's Style SMEG Stand Mixer Review

By  Chef Austin 

 

 Release your 1950's spirit animal with Smeg.

 

 

Quick Specs: 600 Watt Motor | 5 Qt Bowl | Weight: 26 Pounds | 1-Year Warranty |  Attachments Available 

Best For: Releasing your 1950's spirit animal. Smeg makes a drop-dead gorgeous kitchen centerpiece that also happens to be a powerful little mixer. The stylish, Italian-made Smeg performs whipping, mixing, and kneading tasks quite well, thanks to great engineering and a powerful 600W motor.

Pros:

• Italian Designer Piece - Beautiful retro design, solid metal build quality 
• Powerhouse Motor - 600W motor makes easy work of kneading sticky and tough doughs
• Like Driving an Italian Sports Car - Operating the Smeg mixer was a very pleasant experience, and the Smooth Start speed-control function made buttery smooth transitions between speeds 

Cons:

• Mixer head can knock around trying to mix chunkier cookie doughs
• Pricier than typical stand mixers
• Lacks in attachments 

 

 

The Smeg mixer dough hook design evenly mixes and kneads our pizza dough. 

 

Design & Construction

Smeg is an Italian manufacturer founded in 1948 creating tasteful and elegant home and industrial appliances with the quality you would expect from Italy. They have an entire line of matching 50’s Style home appliances to completely theme your kitchen. That's right, you can make a hot shot of espresso or blend up your morning smoothie vintage style thanks to Smeg.

  

Just look at those chrome accents. We had to wipe drool off of the mixer before and after this shot. 

 

The head of the Smeg mixer takes those classic-car influences with its gorgeous rounded edges, sturdy steel and die-cast aluminum build, and of course, chrome accents. The mixer proudly proclaims the manufactures name SMEG on each side with a stylized chrome typeface in its retro-future style.

The bottom stand of the mixer is a zinc-alloy with stainless steel and has a matte finish while the tilt head portion of the mixer is made from die-cast aluminum which gives it a nice classic car feel that is smooth and shiny.  Under the hood is a whopping 600-watt motor, almost twice the power of the standard Kitchenaid Artisan mixer. This power-house motor helps the Smeg mixer easily knead tough and sticky bread doughs.

 

Easy twist-off hub cap to reveal the attachment hub.

The front of the Smeg mixer bears an easily removable hub cover which reveals the front attachment hub for pasta cutters, meat grinder, and other attachments.

The rear of the mixer is home to the tilt-head raising/lowering release button. The button is large and easy to press. When pressed, it will allow you to raise the mixer head, then easily press again to lower it. 

The tilt-head release button takes a little getting used to after being raised on KitchenAid mixers. Since the button is centered in the middle, it's easy to use whether your left or right handed.

Unlike other mixers, the Smeg mixer's speed control is on the top of the tilt head, making it easy to access no matter where you position your mixer. An innovative feature from Smeg is its “Smooth Start” function which starts the mixer up with a reduced initial speed, regardless if the speed set with the control knob. The mixer will gradually increase speed until the selected speed is achieved. This helps avoid damage to the internal components and attachments and at the same time prevents ingredients from being thrown from the bowl.

 

Smeg offers buttery smooth speed transitions *insert vroom vroom sounds here*

This is probably my favorite feature of the Smeg mixer; the switch is a smooth transition from speed to speed, no heavy clunks and stops like on your traditional Kitchenaid, but more like pressing on the accelerator of your car and bringing it up to speed. Smeg attention to detail and dedication to great user experience is also shown here where they actually label what speeds to use with what accessory right there on the mixer. This takes out any guessing helping eliminate user error to prolong the life of the mixer.

 

Included Accessories

 

The three musketeers of stand mixers: the flat beater, wire whisk, and dough hook.

Included with your Smeg mixer are a dough hook, flat beater, wire whisk, and pouring shield. The whisk is made from aluminum with steel wires, the flat beater is aluminum, and so it the dough hook. All are excellent quality, the wire whisk is a little loose and not so sturdy in my opinion, but this could be intentional. The pouring shield is a C-clip design which is easy to install and remove.  

Smeg’s stainless steel five-quart bowl is big enough to handle all pounds of dough and double batches of cookies. It’s a nice quality and has a convenient handle on the side for grabbing and transporting. The bowl twist and locks into place on the mixer’s base.

 

Test Drive

Great Aunt Rose said to mix in chocolate chips by hand.. We didn't do that. Shhhh, don't tell her!

To test the mixing capability, we made my Great Aunt Rose’s Chicago chocolate chip cookies. The Smeg mixer does a great job evenly mixing ingredients with its flat beater. We didn’t have to scrape down the sides of the bowl and had no unmixed streaks of ingredients. We did have a little shaking when we added in the chocolate chips, but that’s expected with tilt head stand mixers.

We whipped a couple of egg whites to test the wire whisk. Smeg wasn't able to whip an individual egg white, the clearance between the whisk and bottom of the bowl was just a little too much, but the '50s Stand Mixer did redeem itself whipping two egg whites into stiff peak meringue with no issues.

The Smeg mixer also passed our pizza dough test with no issues. The flat beater is an effective shape with flattened tips. This design helps evenly mix and incorporate the dough ingredients.

This mixer did a great job evenly mixing ingredients with its flat beater thanks to its “planetary movement” mixing design. According to Smeg, the planetary movement is generated by rotation of the attachment around its axis in the opposite direction to the rotary movement of the mixer. This movement maximizes coverage if the entire bowl with consistent results for all mixtures.

 

Attachments

Although not as numerous as its competition, the Smeg 50’s Style Mixer does have attachments to further its functionality. Check out the Slicer & Grater Attachment to slice and shred vegetables or cheese. Smeg also offers pasta rollers, pasta cutters, and a meat grinder for their retro mixer.

 

 

The Smeg mixer is a beautiful piece of mixing equipment, combining power and functionality with an unforgettable 50’s style design. With it’s “smooth start” 10 variable mixing speeds and its push-button locking mechanism, the attention to detail and technical design on Smeg’s mixer is very apparent. Who would think a mixer could be beautiful enough to be a centerpiece of your kitchen. If you are a fan of the 50’s retro design and the functionality of a great mixer, then yes, get it. The Smeg does have a higher price tag than your other tilt-head stand mixers, but you are buying the 600-watt motor and the Italian design. If you want a more “do-it-all” workhorse mixer with more attachments, then KitchenAid or Bosch are great alternatives.

 

  

 

 

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About the Author:  Chef Austin Merath is Everything Kitchen's Culinary Wizard, Kitchen-Gadget Reviewer, and New-Product Tester. He studied under chefs in College of the Ozarks' Culinary Program. It's his job to make sure you choose the kitchen tools that are right for you by testing the best we have to offer. When not cooking, Austin is tinkering with computers or exploring the Ozarks with his wife Amy. Click here for his full bio.