Characters from The Last Kitchen, our daily story. The villains are made up; their gadgets are real and independently tested. This page contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, Gerzsi earns from qualifying purchases (disclosure).
Here’s the strange thing about our villains: they have excellent taste. Every machine they use is a real product that independent testers rated near the top. The gadgets aren’t the problem. The problem is that the villains stopped tasting, measuring and learning, and let the machines do all the thinking. Chef Tamás says the same thing to every apprentice: a good tool should help your hands, not replace them.
The Gadget Lord
Nobody has seen his face. He wears a smooth silver mask and lives in a ring-shaped ship above the river, and he has gathered the best gadget-users in the galaxy as his generals. He believes hands are slow and make mistakes, and on Black Friday he plans to put every kitchen on Earth under one button: his. Below the mask, two big front teeth. One of them is chipped.
His gadget: a countertop steam oven, based on the Anova Precision Oven. Why it’s actually excellent: America’s Test Kitchen named it its top countertop steam oven. It controls humidity in 5% steps, cooks sous vide without a water bath or bags, and has a built-in probe thermometer. The honest catch: testers found the app connection unreliable and remote start from a phone fell short. Which, if you think about it, is very good news for the heroes.
Countess Thirteen
A wobbly purple jelly from the planet Crispa, with a tiny tiara and thirteen tentacles, each ending in a glowing button. She believes any dish can be done in twelve minutes if you press the right one. Her voice sounds like a microwave beeping, and she presses Air Fry just because she likes the sound.
Her gadget: an air-fryer toaster oven, based on the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro. Why it’s actually excellent: America’s Test Kitchen’s air-fryer toaster oven winner, with consistently the best food across air frying, toasting, roasting and broiling. Thirteen functions, one cubic foot inside, and Breville says it fits a 14 lb turkey. The honest catch: it costs over $300, and no setting replaces knowing when a stew needs three hours instead of twelve minutes.
The Mixmaster
A melon-sized lime-green blob from the planet Whiskor, with three eyes on wobbly stalks and an antenna shaped exactly like a whisk. It wears a tiny chef’s toque it has never earned. It can whip egg whites perfectly. It has never tasted the cake. (Nobody on Whiskor has ever found its mouth.)
Its gadget: a stand mixer with a bowl light and timer, based on the Breville the Bakery Chef. Why it’s actually excellent: Taste of Home named it Best Features, and America’s Test Kitchen recommends it for efficient mixing and excellent results. The honest catch: it’s loud at the highest speeds, and its controls sit at the back left.
Baron Brushless
A stocky orange alien from the asteroid Torq who looks like a boulder with four arms and two antennae shaped like drill bits. He can build anything before lunch and has never once read the instructions. He thinks Wendell the woodpecker is slow. Wendell thinks the Baron is going to lose a finger. The Baron has twenty, so he isn’t worried.
His gadget: a six-tool brushless combo kit, based on the DeWalt DCK695P2. Why it’s actually excellent: Bob Vila named it Best Brushless. Its hammer drill opened more holes faster than any other drill in their test, and it had the only circular saw that could trim a 6×6 post. Pro Tool Reviews calls it the best kit for a contractor starting out. The honest catch: the drill and saw are heavier than the competition.
The Duke of Smoke
A living cloud of hickory smoke from the gas planet Hickoria, with mirrored sunglasses and a tiny cowboy hat that floats on top of him. He runs his smoker from a phone held in two wisps and hasn’t been near a fire in years, which is odd, because he is mostly smoke. He considers Rufus the bear his only rival. Rufus considers the Duke a nice young fellow who should hover next to his grill more.
His gadget: an app-connected pellet grill, based on the Weber Searwood 600. Why it’s actually excellent: Smoked BBQ Source and Taste of Home both named it best overall. It heats fast, recovers quickly after you open the lid, and Taste of Home said its temperature barely moved. It sears hotter than most pellet grills. The honest catch: the shelves cost extra, and the settings aren’t intuitive without Wi-Fi.
So should you buy a villain’s gadget? If you’ll use it, yes. These are some of the best-tested machines in their class. Just keep the Chef Tamás rule: taste your food, learn why things work, and let the machine help, not decide. That’s the whole difference between a villain and a cook.
Read The Last Kitchen from Part 1 → · Meet the heroes · The Black Friday list
Where the test results come from
Each verdict above is summarized from our tested buying guides, which link every original source: countertop ovens (America’s Test Kitchen), stand mixers (Taste of Home, America’s Test Kitchen), pro tool kits (Bob Vila, Pro Tool Reviews) and pellet grills (Smoked BBQ Source, Taste of Home). Prices change often; tap a button for today’s price.
