Breville, creator of many premium kitchen appliances, is at it again with a rather innovative and beautifully designed line called LUXE. This line includes two products so far, a smart kettle and a toaster. This post is going to be about the Breville Luxe toaster and if it’s worth its premium price.
Features of Breville ‘The Toast Select’ Luxe Toaster
- The Breville Toast Select Luxe is a 2 slice toaster that adjusts the toasting time for different breads and allows you to monitor your progress using the LED indicator; Use 'Lift & Look' and 'A Bit More' to check on your toast or extend the toasting cycle
- 6 PRESET TOAST TYPES: Select the time or choose from 6 bread settings of your choice - Whole Wheat, White, Bagel, Waffles, Pastries and English Muffin, and the toaster will automatically adjust the toasting time
- COMPACT 2 SLICE CAPACITY: The toaster features a 2 slice capacity and has wider slots to meet the demands of larger artisanal bread, thick bagels and dense pastries
- VARIABLE BROWNING CONTROL: The Breville Toast Select Luxe Toaster lets you toast to your ideal brownness and monitor progress with the LED indicator so you know how much longer the toasting cycle has left to run
- MANUAL LIFT & LOOK: Classic control with manual lifting and lowering lever to monitor your toast's progress at any time without interrupting the toasting cycle
One of the things that sets this toaster apart from other Breville Toasters is the Toast Select feature. Now, selecting toast shade, or ‘brownness’, is nothing new to Breville. We’ve already seen this in their ‘A Bit More’ toaster. Actually, all toasters have this feature, so it’s certainly nothing new although results vary by brand.
What’s new though is the fact that Breville toasters take the type of bread you’re toasting into consideration as the type of bread as well as its thickness affect the browning process.
With the Luxe Toaster, you have six presets to choose from:
white, fruit, brown, grain, rye and crumpet.
As for brownness, you can select from 6 different shades.
How Does It Work?
It is quite simple. Select the type of bread then select your desired brownness setting. Once you’ve selected your settings, the toaster will do its magic.
Now let’s say you’ve changed the type of bread you’re toasting, what happens is the toaster will automatically adjust the temperature to get you the same browning results, without having to change the toasting level.
So one of the great things about this toaster is, you don’t have to adjust the brownness level to match the type of bread you’re using, which was the case with previous toasters. Selecting a browning level will get you the result that match your selected bread type.
Other Features:
These two innovative features are in all of Breville’s smart toasters:
- ‘A Bit More’, which is just what it sounds like. If you want your bread toasted just a bit more, you can do it with just a touch of button. It adds a little time to your toasting cycle, so it doesn’t start over and burn your bread.
- Lift and Look, another rather self-explanatory feature, allows you to lift and look at your bread mid-cycle so you can see its progress.
Pros of the Breville Luxe Toaster:
This toaster has really great capabilities to give you the perfect piece of toast, no matter what type of bread you like. It has settings for a wide range of bread types and enough browning levels to choose from. Features like Bit More and Lift and Look will offer additional help to get you the exact results you want.
The design of the toaster is absolutely beautiful. The brushed stainless steel finish, rotary selector and chrome accents give it an upscale look that you’ll love to have on your countertop.
Cons of the Breville Luxe Toaster:
For the price, it’s a shame that it only has a two-slice capacity. The slots are about 5.5″ in depth, according to Breville. It will accommodate most square or rounded bread slices, but it wouldn’t fit long cuts of bread.
With such premium price, you’d expect it to be designed to fit more slices or that they’d consider longer types of bread.
Is Breville Luxe Toaster Worth Its Price?
This is a hard question to answer, as value is a subjective thing. Overall, I’d say the Breville Luxe Toaster has some really nice features, they could be available in some other brands, but not as nearly as smart or beautiful in design as this one.
It’s a total shame about the capacity though. I’m not happy that the slots aren’t long enough or that they only accommodate two slices. However, I know people use their toasters differently, so if capacity isn’t an issue for you here, then this toaster is totally worth a try.
Best Alternative To Breville Luxe Toaster
- The Breville Smart Toaster with extra long slice capacity for bread types that need longer slots; Use one touch auto lowering or lifting for gentle handling, "Lift & Look" to monitor progress and 'A Bit More' to add a extra time to the toasting cycle
- INNOVATIVE FEATURES: 'Lift & Look' and 'A Bit More' allow you to check on your toast or add a little extra time without interrupting the toasting cycle; The bagel function ensures even heat for even toasting and unfreeze your favorites using defrost
- EXTRA LONG 4 SLICE CAPACITY: The toaster features a 4 slice capacity and provides longer slots to meet the demands of larger artisanal bread, thick bagels and dense pastries
- VARIABLE BROWNING CONTROL: The Breville Smart Toaster 4-slice long slots lets you toast to your ideal brownness level and monitor your progress with the LED indicator so you know how much longer the toasting cycle has left to run
- AUTOMATIC CONTROL WITH AUTO LIFE & LOOK: At the touch of a button, your bread can be automatically lowered into the toaster, lifted during the toasting cycle to monitor progress and lifted at the end to deliver toasting perfection
Breville’s BTA830XL Die-Cast smart toaster would make a great alternative to the Luxe model if you’d prefer something with more capacity.
Although it does not have the same customization capability as the Luxe, this toaster does have variable settings such as a special selector for frozen bread or bagel. It has 4 slice capacity, which means it can allow accommodate long bread cuts. It has Breville’s famous ‘Bit More’ and ‘Lift and Look’ features, too.
The Die-cast housing of this toaster gives it a sleek design that is also very durable and easy to clean.