I’m what you could call a kitchen purist -- I put my apron on, I prep my mise-en-place with Sinatra blaring on the Sonos, and I cook dinner for my fiancé while she sips on a jammy Cab Sauv. I must admit, however, that the Brava -- the smart countertop oven seemingly yanked from the Jetsons’ kitchen counter and plopped onto mine -- has made a superfan out of me, and will be making our Valentine's Day dinner date feel restaurant-quality (while we're still safe at home). Gadget disdain be damned: this tool is the real deal even the most traditional of home chefs can find meaningful value in.
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This onboarding blew me away. Provided to every customer to ensure you get the most out of your investment in the Brava, I was paired with Kate from the Customer Success Team. She spent an hour(!) walking through the best practices and tips and tricks with me, including some live demos from her WFH setup. I’ll be honest -- it’s a bit intimidating at first; the Brava has so much to offer (conventional oven, toaster, pizza oven, microwave, air fryer and dehydrator) with different steps and techniques to master each. But like all things -- with a little bit of time, experience and repetition, you can master the Brava and harness its full power.
In your box is a handy starter guide, which welcomes you to #bravalife. The touch-screen on the device has step-by-step instructions complete with full recipes to make your experience as fool-proof as possible. Couple this with a vibrant Facebook and Instagram community constantly highlighting new use cases and recipes, and you’ll never run out of inspired ways to use the Brava.
Brava uses a combination of visible and infrared light to cook food faster and more efficiently than the hot air of convection ovens, or the conduction of stovetops. Unlike air or cast iron, light can be easily targeted and adjusted. This means you can create food that otherwise would have been separately sauteed, grilled, seared and baked.
Taking things a step further, a game changing feature of the Brava is its ability to cook a full meal (protein, veggie, starch) all at once on the same tray! That’s because the Brava has six heating elements, allowing them to separate the main cooking area into three separate zones, each of which cooks its respective food at a different temperature. Want to cook a couple salmon, some potatoes, and a few vegetables in one go? Not a problem. Just line them up in the proper position, let the machine know what you’re cooking, and you’re set.
There’s a resulting exactness to the Brava that I’ve never before experienced as a home chef. That perfection is hard to achieve even for those well versed in home cooking and was clearly on display when I took the Brava on multiple test drives.
First up was a favorite in our house -- lamb chops. I tend to buy the frenched rack from Trader Joe’s, and then cut them myself into lollipops before grilling on a very hot barbeque for a few minutes each side. Brava had a program for a rack of lamb (program here means the Brava Culinary team at HQ has perfected the cook temperature and time such that you select it on the control panel and press a few buttons to get started).
An incredible feature that enables ‘set it and forget it’ cooking is the temperature probe, which you insert into your protein and connect to the machine, allowing the Brava to know the precise temperature throughout the cook. We like our lamb medium, so the Brava will cook to our desired temperature and automatically shut down when it’s completed. The result was divine. An incredible sear (hard to believe light can achieve such results but the photos are the proof), with perfectly cooked medium chops when we cut into them. My fiance and I sat at the dinner table, chowing down and marveling that the Brava made this. It tasted so good, I don’t think we’ll ever go back to our traditional way of cooking Lamb. We were hooked.
Admittedly, I’m just getting started unleashing the full potential of the Brava. That’s incredibly exciting given how strong the first impression has been with this machine. I can see the Brava providing value to so many different types of customers:
• The avid home chef like me who will be blown away by the precise results and restaurant-grade dishes the Brava serves up.
• A culinary novice will also fall in love with this tool, helping to close-the-gap for someone’s lack of confidence in the kitchen.
• The team at Brava also pointed out there’s a growing customer segment of retirees and in some cases customers who have lost a partner and are now cooking for one (some even cooking for themselves for the first time in their lives!).
The gadget itself has far more perks than I can capture here -- for example, Brava cooks pizza exceptionally well without having to preheat your oven for an hour beforehand.
The Brava has earned a permanent spot on our kitchen counter: we find ourselves using the tool multiple times each day, and it’s far and away become the workhorse kitchen appliance in our home. It's elevating all of our date night dinners, and making every meal feel a bit more special, delicious, and less difficult to prepare.
• Featured in Forbes, Buzzfeed, Popsugar and New York Times, who claims the Brava Oven is a new contender for “revolutionizing home cooking.”
• Near five star reviews from customers who exalt it’s the “Ultimate Sous Chef”, a “Gamechanger” and “Perfect for Busy Families.”
• Ever growing library of recipes: the Culinary Team at Brava is constantly dreaming up built-for Brava recipes to make restaurant-quality food at home.
• Using its pure light technology, the Brava cooks meals in 1/3 of the time of conventional ovens: For example sweet potatoes that traditionally would take 45 mins in an oven take 14-17 in the Brava.
• Brava is an investment for sure, but you can finance the Brava with 0% APR and return it for a full refund within 100 days of purchase if you’re not in love with it.
• Eco Friendly: Brava cooks a complete meal with less energy than it takes to just preheat a conventional oven, and the infrared emitters are twice as efficient as standard nichrome or quartz heating emitters found in most home ovens and toaster ovens.
It's the perfect gift for yourself or someone you care about this Valentine's Day -- one that will stand the test of time and elevate the everyday.
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