If you consider the kitchen to be the heart of the home, look no further than these brands to imbue your (or a loved one’s) space with a modern edge in the upcoming new year and beyond.
Our Place, a company focused on creating quality, non-toxic heirloom Traditionware™ that adds a modern pop of color with a nod to traditional design to your kitchen, features amazing gifts for the cook in your life. Our Place’s mission emphasizes the importance of creating home products that encourage the transmission of culinary traditions between generations of families — “given, chosen or found.”
Our Place’s uniqueness hinges on its modern, sustainable designs that make cooking significantly easier for the home chef. Among its products are its flagship Always Pan 2.0 and 8-in-1 function Perfect Pot. The Always Pan features a 10.5-inch surface and steamer basket ideal for braising, searing, steaming, or any other culinary intervention your recipes may require. The Perfect Pot features 5.5 quarts of room for virtually any function you can think of — from roasting, baking, boiling, and more. Both are derived from recycled aluminum, include a nesting beechwood spatula, utilize a non-stick toxin-free ceramic coating, and are oven-safe up to 450 degrees.
You can purchase both products as part of a bundle for a steep discount, and shop the brand’s Black Friday deals online for even more savings.
For those who love the convenience of countertop ovens, Our Place’s Wonder Oven is an excellent addition to your home. Don’t let its small size fool you — with a 12L capacity and standing at 11.6 in. in height, this product can work wonders, preheating 75% faster and cooking 35% quicker than traditional ovens. It also features two levels for multi-cooking dishes and includes a wire rack, bake pan, air fryer basket, and crumb tray.
Our Place’s co-founder, Shiza Shahid, is a humanitarian who also co-founded the Malala Fund, a non-profit organization advocating for the development of secondary educational opportunities for young women on a global scale. In a similar vein, Our Place is highly concerned with creating products that support communities both at the dinner table and around the world: the brand regularly donates to systems-based causes and utilizes women-owned manufacturing collectives in its production processes.
The recent global pandemic ignited a baking craze that’s even confounded academics. Sourdough bread was the most Googled recipe of 2020, which makes the SAKI Artisan Bread Maker an obvious addition for those who still hold this culinary art near and dear to their hearts years later. 
SAKI was formed in 2018 as a family endeavor focused on creating innovative products for coffee and tea consumers and quickly expanded into food and home-focused designs. While hot beverages are presumably SAKI’s bread and butter, the brand also offers several smart food prep appliances, including smart air fryers, an automatic pot stirrer and a smart sous vide cooker. With its breadmaker, featuring a touchscreen and ceramic bread pan, all you have to do is throw in all your ingredients, choose your settings, press the timer and you’re all set. You can even leave your machine on overnight or while away from home, making it all the more appealing for novice breadmakers or those constantly on the go.
When considering how inflation has impacted the costs of food, the SAKI Bread Maker makes the decision to go homemade easy, especially for those who enjoy having creative control over the ingredients they consume.
Cuzen Matcha, another brand celebrating the tradition of tea, features a Matcha Maker Starter Kit that will instantly impress tea lovers.
Cuzen’s products have taken the tea industry by storm, earning accolades that include TIME Magazine’s Best Inventions of 2020, the Esquire Home Awards, and the Deezen Awards 2020 Design Longlist. It’s a beautiful, compact machine that grinds and whisks the brand’s exclusive sampler of three freshly ground, authentic Japanese matcha tea varieties.
The health benefits of Cuzen’s matcha, made from shade-grown Tencha leaves, are impressive, while the benefits of matcha consumption overall are well-documented. Cuzen’s matcha is cultivated from organic tea farms in Kagoshima, Japan in processes absent chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Because the whole leaf is consumed, matcha is incredibly high in antioxidants and the L-theanine protein compound, the latter of which regulates the production of the stress hormone cortisol and calms you down. Simultaneously, its caffeine content also produces an uplifting effect that offers its consumers better focus than just plain caffeine. The result is a steady boost of energy absent the caffeine crashes common with other alternatives – something that will please fans seeking caffeinated beverages with more kick than traditional tea bags but less bite than coffee.
Once you’ve tried Cuzen’s Smooth & Umami Rich, Balanced & Full Bodied, or Bright & Robust blends, you can subscribe to save 15% per month for matcha packets.
While not an appliance, the Umbra Tipsy Balancing Bottle Opener is a sleek accessory to upgrade your home bar kit with a touch of modern artistic flair.
The Tipsy Balancing Bottle Opener, pegged as a “perfect fusion of form and
function,” certainly lives up to its name and description. The Tipsy Bottle Opener was designed in a collaboration between Toronto-based Umbra Design Studio and Humber College third-year industrial design student Evan Demczuk as part of a home design product challenge. Demczuk’s design, which took inspiration from traditional balancing toys, is sure to garner the attention of your guests the next time you reach for a bottle.
The product is just one of several creative collaborations between Umbra and a growing roster of independent designers. Most recently, the company announced the launch of its Picket Wall Hook: a bold, beveled wooden design conceived of by Sung Wook, winner of a joint student design competition by Umbra and German automaker Audi.
Shop Umbra’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday events to get up to 60% off select inventory.
