At Simon's Skip we are great fans of the Kenwood Chef. The 'right-ness' of its design shows in the way that, despite various detail changes, the action of the Kenwood Chef has never changed - the Planetary Action that means that the beaters reach every corner of the mixing bowl.

The Kenwood Chef is a must-have for the serious cook. It makes an ideal Christmas gift or birthday present for the discerning homemaker and those who enjoy being creative in the kitchen, and is a gift that will keep going strong for a very long time! A new machine offers the security that a brand new piece of equipment offers, whereas the older models are usually just as reliable and have value as both an appliance and as a design icon - ideal for those who appreciate such things!

<

It is also one of the most incredibly versatile kitchen machines of all time, and also one of the most long-lived of brands. The Kenwood Chef was introduced in 1948 as the A700, and the main selling point was the range of add-on attachments that the consumer could buy for it. These were still the years of rationed food, not the best environment to lauch a machine designed to prepare sophisticated meals, but when rationing ended, sales of the Kenwood Chef took off. Different attachments have come and gone over the years, and have varied from the ever-popular liquidiser and coffee grinder, to can openers, sausage makers, potato peelers and pasta makers. From the start, the Chef had four separate outlets driven from the motor, with a high-speed one at the rear, two slower ones at the front and top, and one for the beaters underneath. Coupled with multiple motor speeds, this makes the Chef an ultra flexible piece of machinery.

In 1960, inspired by the clean lines of a similar but less versatile mixer by Braun, the Kenwood Chef was given a comprehensive restyle by Kenneth Grange, and became the A701. All subsequent Chefs had styling based on this model, and indeed, apart from the introduction of electronic speed control in 1976, and various facelifts over the years, the Chef of today is little different in spirit to the 1948 model.

But of course, the Kewood Chef is so much more than a mere food mixer - there has never been a kitchen machine with such a wide and versatile range of attachments and accesories. The Chef can perform a multitude of different tasks in the kitchen with these add ons, and we list all available Kenwood Chef accesories here, if you already own a Chef and want to know what else it can do!

The Kenwood Chef is a high quality machine, and this is reflected in its price new. It has however always been built to last for a long time, which means that if a brand-new Kenwood Chef is a little out of your price league, second-hand is always worth considering. Kenwood Chefs appear frequently on the world's premiere auction site, Ebay, and used Kenwood Chefs can be bought for a fraction of the price of a new machine. Many accessories are also available on Ebay too, and can be found, sometimes still boxed and unused, for real bargain prices!