If you want to introduce the high-end luxury and sophistication of a 5-star restaurant into your home, a French door wall oven is a great way to do exactly that. These stylish, professionally designed ovens bring phenomenal cooking power in a luxurious package that’s sure to grab attention in your home. If you bake, roast and broil often, you will appreciate the ease and safety of accessing your hot dishes with French doors. Often installed waist high, these ovens offer sensible ergonomics so that stooping and bending while making sure the oven door doesn’t slam on its hinges quickly becomes a thing of the past.
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But French door wall ovens aren’t just all style—they can also come with an impressive set of cooking features and capabilities that have made them hugely popular among homeowners with a passion for gourmet cooking.
We prepared this guide to help you know how to pick the right French door wall oven for your needs, and highlight three of the best options currently available on the market in 2019. We hope that by the end you’ll have a better sense for how to choose the right French door wall oven.
Picking the Right French Door Wall Oven for You
The most distinctive trait of French door ovens is, well, their French doors, which open from the center rather than from the top or from one side. This makes accessing them a breeze, keeping you from having to reach up and over a door that’s opened outward.
But that’s not the only consideration when picking a French door wall oven. You also want to account for their cooking abilities, size, reliability ratings, included features, and overall design. Here are the most important elements to consider for each category.
Cooking Power & Features
The cooking power of your oven should be a top consideration when choosing your brand and model. Not only do you want the ability to choose the right temperature for your needs, but the best models also features advanced presets for specific dishes or functions, giving you powerful cooking ability at the push of a button. All of the models we’ve highlighted in this article rank outstandingly well for cooking capabilities—that’s why they’re on the list!
Some ovens can connect directly to your smartphone, while others feature built-in touch screens for a familiar control experience. Others feature both of these features and much more. Can you still cook a dinner without advanced, high-tech features in your oven? Sure. Will it be as convenient, efficient, and fun? Probably not. Make a list of the features that matter most to you in an oven before you shop, and stick to the models and brands that offer those features to ensure that you’ll love your French door wall oven for years to come.
Size
Not all French door wall ovens feature the same interior or exterior dimensions. For example, the GE Cafe model features a 27 3/4 inch depth and 29 3/4 inch height. Not only should you make sure that the space in your kitchen will fit the wall oven you buy, but you should also ensure that the internal capacity is enough to handle whatever cooking tasks you might throw at it—from small trays of cookies to entire whole turkeys.
Reliability
Ovens feature a range of both mechanical and heated element parts, which can all deteriorate after regular use if not designed well and built using the highest quality materials and componentry. For example, the hinges on the French doors can quickly wear out if not built well. That’s why you want to choose a brand that’s well-known for building long-lasting, reliable, high quality appliances that stand the test of time. Look for customer reviews and reliability ratings, as well as impressive warranties that speak to a brand’s confidence in its products. If a brand doesn’t offer to guarantee your appliance for an extended period, it could be a sign that they don’t believe in its ability to keep ticking after sustained use.
Effective Self Clean
Depending on how frequently you use your oven and the types of dishes you prepare, it’s always a good idea to give your oven a good cleaning after 2-3 months of use.
The downside is cleaning an oven is that it is hard work if the oven doesn’t come equipped with a self-clean cycle. When an oven doesn’t come with a self clean cycle, you’ll need to use harsh chemicals, scrub the oven walls, rinse, and, yet, you still may not be able to get all the smudge off.
Self clean makes life much easier. It heats up the oven up to 900F to burn off the grime while you sit back and wait for the oven to finish its work.
Design
If you’re shopping for an oven with French doors, you probably have an instinct for visual style. Choosing a wall oven that looks fantastic in your kitchen is part of the process, so look for beautiful finishes (black stainless steel is a current popular choice) that not only blend well with your kitchen decor and other appliances, but also bring a unique style all their own. You’ll love the compliments you receive from guests, and it will make your time spent in the kitchen all the more enjoyable.
Our Top 3 French Door Oven Picks
Here are three of the best French door wall ovens available for 2019, based on features, design, cooking ability, reliability, and overall quality.
1) Cafe CT9070SHSS 30-inch French Door Wall Oven
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GE might have a reputation as the dependable workhorse of the appliance world, but their Cafe line takes their trademark dependability and adds plenty of high-end style and features.
This Cafe model is no different, with a pair of restaurant-grade French doors and plenty of cooking power hiding behind them. And did you know that precision engineering allows you to open both doors with one hand at the same time?
This Cafe model also features true European convection with direct air for even cooking and perfect crispiness where appropriate. and you’ll love the WiFi connectivity that lets you control the oven from your smartphone.
Meanwhile, electronic dial controls and progressive halogen oven lighting create a premium cooking experience, as do the heavy-duty roller racks and ten-pass dual broil element for even browning.
We suspect that Cafe will phase out the CT9070SHSS soon to make room for the customizeable French door ovens (see the picture above) – the CTS90FP2MS1 in Stainless Steel, CTS90FP4MW2 in Matte White, and CTS90FP3MD1 in Matte Black. While these ovens come equipped the same way, custom knobs and handles will give you additional style options.
2) BlueStar 30-inch French Door Wall Oven
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The first thing you notice about this BlueStar model is its striking, minimalist design. BlueStar doesn’t add any visual design element or feature that’s out of place, making this one of the most impressive-looking ovens we’ve seen in some time. That’s backed up by the fact that you have the choice of an incredible 750+ colors and finishes, so you’re sure to find the perfect look for your home.
Other premium features include a powerful 2,500 Watt bake element and 1,800 watt heat assist for fast preheats, plus a commercial-grade 5,000 Watt infrared broiler for restaurant-quality browning and broiling results.
Other features include True European Convection cooking, intuitive touch-screen control panel with 12 custom cooking modes, plus a precision temperature probe that lets you know exactly when dishes are ready to eat.
BlueStar appliances have been handcrafted in Pennsylvania for nearly 150 years, and they’ve only gotten better over time.
3) Viking 7 Series 30-inch French Door Wall Oven
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Viking French door oven comes in 7 different colors from burgundy to apple red to stainless steel. This oven has an amazing infrared broiler so you don’t need to move around your dish to get even results. The hidden baking element is easy to clean and effective. Combined these heaters give you a leg up during preheat.
Convection cooking mode has 2 fan speeds that you can deploy based on the food selection.
As for the style, you can open both doors by pulling one of the handles. Blue LED halo lights add a nifty accent.
Bonus – Bosch Benchmark HBLP451LUC 30-inch Wall Oven with Side Swing Door
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The Bosch Benchmark series already has a reputation for being one of the best lineups of appliances on the market, and this French door wall oven is no exception. It features a color TFT control panel with SteelTouch buttons for easy and satisfying control, plus features like a full-extension rack that offers easy access to the oven cavity when loading or unloading large and heavy dishes.
This model also boasts 14 specialized cooking modes and custom programs for tasks like pizzas, pies, warming, proofing, and no-preheat frozen food mode. Genuine convection cooking ensures even temperatures and doneness, and it all adds up to a Bosch wall oven that earns its place among the best of the best that 2019 has to offer.
Conclusion
French door wall ovens are a great way to instantly upgrade the high-end look and capabilities of your kitchen. While any of the three models we outlined would make great choices, we also hope that manufacturers in general will offer additional choices in this category.
Have more questions on wall ovens? See our in-depth review.
FAQs
Do French door wall ovens let more heat escape than single-door models?
No, French door ovens do just a good a job at trapping heat inside the oven as their one-door counterparts.
Are there any disadvantages to French door ovens?
The only thing to consider is that to fully access the oven’s interior you’ll need to open two doors rather than one, which could potentially be a minor inconvenience if you have something in your hands when opening the oven. Otherwise, they have everything that single-door models have to offer and then some.