Choosing an Investment Range: Deciding on Lacanche
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We’re going with an investment-grade range in our kitchen, which I know lots of people find wasteful, or indulgent. It’s probably both those things, honestly, but we all have different things we’re willing to splurge on. I drive a 12 year old car I bought off my in-laws, for example, but am willing to lay down cash when it comes to my kitchen range. Which is all to say – deciding to go with a pricey range is a big decision! Also, FYI, I’m not being paid or sponsored for this post (or ANY post – my poor little baby blog dreams of being paid for things, especially fancy French things), so my opinions are my own.
Black matte Lacanche
To decide on Lacanche, we ‘test drove’ some fancy ranges. Lacanche actually set us up with a (lovely) homeowner who has one of the ranges so we could see how we liked it, since they don’t have a Boston showroom.
La Cornue in a traditional home
We also looked at La Cornue, another French company. Both Lacanche and Lacornue are classic ‘European style’ ranges, which is to say that their internal workings are lightweight, easy to deal with, and the top is configurable to your specifications. They are not at all the ‘industrial’ or ‘professional’ style that is mainly popular in the USA, like Wolf or Thermador.
Wolf range in traditional kitchen
We also, of course, have experienced the AGA firsthand after living with it for two years. And while it’s a gorgeous beast that I enjoy cooking on, I’ve written about why we’re moving on here.
An AGA looking pretty in a Plain English kitchen
Ultimately, we decided on Lacanche for three reasons:
Stainless Lacanche in a moody kitchen
1. The look is beautiful and fits in with our home. Lacornue has gorgeous stuff, but ultimately it was a little more ‘bling’ than we’re looking for. Professional style ranges also can look great in the right space (we had a similarly styled Jenn Air range in our Boston apartment we loved), but just doesn’t fit in as well in an antique, traditional home.
2. The price point is (slightly) more reasonable than other European ranges, like Lacornue, AGA or Esse.
Esse cooker in teal
3. The Lacanche ranges we’ve seen have held up much better wear-and-tear wise than other luxury ranges. Our AGA, for example, is about 25 years old but is horribly scratched and has grease baked on so hard it’s impossible to remove. This is because it has a flat top, making it easy to scratch pans across its glossy surface, and because it is hot all the time which can cause baked-on grease build up that can only be removed by a utility knife, which again risks scratching. The Lacornues we saw in person had suffered loose decorative bolts and handles, which also gave us pause. It could be just a matter of who owned these items and how well they kept them, but it was still a consideration.
Lacanche in a DeVol kitchen
The hope is that this range will be practical, timeless and ultimately add to the value of our home.
Could you give an update on your lacanche?
I’m considering making the same decision and would love to hear what your experience has been now that you have it. Have you had issues with the oven doors, the oven temp, or anything with the burners? What config did you get and now that you have worked with it for a while, would you make different choices?