Fulgor Milano Sofia 36 Professional Series Colours

For over 70 years the Menenghetti family have been combining artisanal skills with a passion for quality and contemporary design, and Fulgor Milano has gained a huge reputation for producing truly impressive cooking appliances which sell across the globe - particularly in the USA. Freestanding range cookers have always been a strong part of their portfolio, and the Sofia collection (named in honour of the elegant Italian movie star) was launched in 2015 - a bold, clean and rigorous design with a professional outlook and all the quality, performance and style you would expect of this exceptional brand. The elegant design also has a monolithic quality; the rectilinear intersections of the brushed aluminium facia, branding and touch control panel, together with the chunky solid metal controls, sturdy door handles and the flat ironworks on the hob have a combined effect which is impressive and reassuring. This is a cooker to be taken seriously. As a nice touch, you can order a bespoke name-plate with “signature” content and style of your own choosing, which will be engraved and delivered separately.

This 36 inch FSRC 3606 GG ED model (910mm wide) is 69mm deeper than the standard UK cabinet, so it will either project slightly into the room (this can look very appealing), or if you prefer a flush look you will need to build your kitchen accordingly. This purposeful cooker features a 161 litre gas oven, so if you are a professional chef accustomed to cooking with gas then you will love the way this oven performs - a large underfloor burner and diffuser, in combination with the internal fans, delivers heat evenly throughout the cavity. There is also a variable gas grill burner which, like the oven and hob, can convert from natural mains gas to LPG if required. Inside the oven are two heavy duty racks, one of which can be set up on telescopic runners, an enamel tray with anti-splash insert, and a plug-in food probe which works in conjunction with the 6-digit touch control timer to cook to a target temperature for perfect results. Worth noting is that this Sofia Professional range is made using touch-proof stainless steel, so it will keep looking good even after some serious work, and the quadruple-glazed, soft-close oven doors cleverly use heat reflecting glass to keep the external temperature below 50°C.

On the top, the eye is caught by the rather slab-like cast iron pan supports which not only look great but their deceptively elegant design allows very smooth movement of pans across their even surface. Beneath these you will find six professional, brass-bound double crown “Crescendo” gas burners, amazingly flexible and enduring, with dual control allowing adjustment from a very gentle 0.35kW up to a sizzling 4.5kW. This is a uniquely impressive feature - most ranges will have one or perhaps two of these burners, but the presence of six of these marks this cooker out as a true professional with the shear power to perform like no other. The hotplate is coated in a matt porcelain enamel for resilience (it looks nice too), and all burners have an automatic re-ignition feature.

All in all, this is the cooker of a lifetime, and if you love cooking or simply want an amazing kitchen to show off to your friends, this is the range cooker to do it with. A pure pedigree, wonderful engineering and Italian passion all in one glorious package.