When I was finalizing my purchases, I was considering Gaggenau and Miele too. I didn't think there was a huge difference in function. I thing the Gagg looks nicer, and if you have a Gagg oven it pairs nicely. I could easily have gone either way, but the deciding factor was the permanent water connection. However that won't be a factor in for you in Europe. In theory I like the variable steam options on Gagg, but I'm sure I could have made the Miele single option work just fine. Until this post, I didn't even pay attention to the "steam without pressure." So apparently I could have lived without it! I suspect it doesn't make a huge difference in most cases. One thing I do like about the Gagg is the side oven opening. I don't feel like a slide out rack would be particulally beneficial. Again, I'm sure if I had the slide out rack, I would say , "I couldn't live without it!" Perhaps I'm not being very helpful at all, but I think that both are very good options. It might be a qustion of price or style, but in terms of function, both have their relative pros and cons that seem to balance each other out.

I have a Wolf CSO and, if I had to do it over again, I would give Miele a much closer look than I did the first time around. According to the Yale appliance blog, Miele makes 97% of their parts in-house, and it's the least-serviced brand they have. The Wolf CSO, on the other hand, is a re-branded V-Zug (a European brand) oven. If you're thinking of getting the Wolf in the "Professional" trim (as shown in your mockup), be aware that the hinges are not strong enough to support the weight of the bar on the door. Wolf advises that, after use, you leave the door partially open in the "at rest" position to let the oven cool down. If you try this, the door will fall completely open with a fair amount of force. The problem, according to a Wolf repairman, is that the bar adds too much weight to the door. Wolf doesn't consider this to be a defect though, as you can fiddle with the door and find a spot where it will stay partially open. The Miele unit is plumbed, while Wolf has a removable water container. It isn't hard to refill the Wolf container, but my oven often says it needs to be refilled once it gets down below about 1/2 full. The oven won't give you this error message though, unless the oven is running in steam mode. When this happens on my oven, it won't even recognize that I've refilled the water, and I have to shut the oven off completely (once I even had to flip the breaker) to get the oven to recognize that it has water. It's annoying at best, and can create problems if you need to get steam into the oven early in the cooking process (like when you're baking a loaf of bread). Of course I can't replicate this problem in front of a repairperson, so the problem hasn't been fixed. It's interesting that a rep at the local Wolf design center told me that Wolf had studied the CSO market extensively and decided not to make a plumbed model, because 90% of the problems encountered are with the plumbing. Aside from that statement being complete BS, 90% of the problems I have with my Wolf are with the water tray. Wolf tells you to start cooking all of your dishes in a cold oven, as it heats up quickly. I think the real reason they tell you this, is because the oven won't produce steam once the temperature gets over 212 degrees. So if you're an experienced bread baker and want to bake bread in a preheated oven while injecting steam, be aware that you can't do this on a Wolf. I started another post on this subject in the Appliance Forum, and my understanding is that the Miele CSO will inject steam into a preheated oven. This isn't to say that you can't make a decent loaf of bread in the Wolf, but it won't give you the amount of control that an experienced baker typically wants. Another issue is that, if you are cooking something with steam at a temperature over 212 and open the door to check on your dish (like when you're reheating something), most of the steam will come out and the oven won't put new steam in. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as my experience is that too much steam can make a dish too soggy. Always be careful to protect your hands when opening an oven with steam, as you can get burned very easily. Aside from the steam, a big advantage to having a CSO is that it heats up very quickly and is much more convenient than a full-size oven when making a quick meal. In this respect, the lack of a broiler on the Wolf is a definite disadvantage. Wolf has a "Convection Humid" mode for their oven, which I find is nice for cooking dishes like lasagna and macaroni & cheese. Many newer traditional ovens now vent any steam because of their sensitive electronics, so I find it convenient to have this cooking mode available. I don't know whether Miele has this cooking mode as well, but I assume they do. When used as a traditional oven, the Wolf CSO heats up air and blows it into the oven cavity, unlike a traditional convection oven which heats up the oven cavity and then redistributes the air. This seemed a bit weird to me at first, as the oven cavity is completely cool almost immediately after cooking, even though the heating element (wherever it is) is hot and needs time to cool off. When cooking something that sticks up in front of the convection fan (like a roast or a loaf of bread), I generally turn it around half way through, to avoid overcooking one side. Aside from this, the Wolf seems to take a bit longer to cook most dishes than a traditional oven (though this is more than offset by the quicker time to heat up). Wolf has a number of pre-programmed cooking modes under their "Gourmet" and "Recipe" menus. They'll send you a book with recipes for one or two of these menus, but other than that, you're on your own in terms of figuring out what they do and how to use them. For example, there's a pre-programmed Slow Roast mode, which does a very nice job of roasting a beef tenderloin and having it ready to eat (including resting time) exactly when you want it. There are several other types of meat that can be cooked in this way, but what if I want to make a Strip Roast (which isn't one of the choices)? Do I just program it for Top Round and hope it comes out the same? There's all kinds of pre-programmed modes (e.g. soufflés or beef stroganoff), but absolutely no information on what the oven does in these modes. Maybe it's me, but I want to know what the oven is going to do before I just let its computer take over. In many cases, there's a small pool of water in the bottom of the Wolf after using one of the steam modes. Wiping this up with a paper towel is generally enough to keep the bottom clean. The sides and back are a lot more difficult to clean though. Wolf says to run the oven with steam at a certain temperature for a certain length of time, and then everything should wipe off. This hasn't been the case with my oven, which has lots of little brown spots on the back and sides, that I can't seem to get off. The Wolf CSO comes with one solid and one perforated pan that fit into the slots on the side of the oven. A rep at my local design center told me to be sure to buy some "half size" pans as well, so I could steam 2 different dishes at once. The clear impression was that these "half-size" pans take up the whole width of the oven and fit into the racks as well. After spending $250 to buy 2 of the "half-size" perforated pans, I discovered that they're nothing more than small perforated pans that you could buy in any restaurant supply store for $10 or $15 apiece. They aren't the full width of the oven, and certainly don't fit into the side slots. Of course, they won't take the pans back, because I had already opened them at this point. I get the feeling that Wolf spends more money on promoting their brand, while Miele spends more on engineering. Wolf has a number of design centers around the country where smartly dressed people will wax enthusiastic about their products. They also hold cooking demonstrations where chefs will show you how to prepare dishes to impress your guests. Overall, my impression is that Miele gives you a lot more control over the cooking process than Wolf. That's not to say that the Wolf doesn't do its job well, but it often doesn't tell you what it's doing, and you have to come up with own methods if you want to tweak the process. It reminds me a bit of a story I read once about the difference between Boeing and Airbus. Both planes have lots of computerized controls, that do most of the work of flying. The difference is that Boeing always gives ultimate control to the pilot, while Airbus leaves that control with the computer. So in certain situations Airbus pilots need to learn how to trick the computer into doing what they want the plane to do. From what I've seen and read, Wolf is more of an Airbus, and Miele is more of a Boeing.

These are ovens not sci-fi marvels. If you have a cold house and a cold kitchen and a cold oven, it can take a lot time to heat up. Because it's cold. And the oven is only heated when the oven itself is hot, not just the air in the cavity. That's why so many older recipes say to start at 425° F for the first fifteen minutes. They don't really mean it. They mean if you set it to 425° when the preheat light goes off, it's really at 375°, and after fifteen minutes of trying to get back to 425° after you open the door, you're really back at the 375° that you wanted to be cooking at in the first place. I find that Gaggenau is better about that, though I will still start the oven early to get it good and hot and even. I can't remember if the combi- set up has an option to have fast preheat or not. I don't like it because I do cold start baking. My six year old combi- takes about 15 minutes to get fully to heat for regenerate if it's starting from dead cold. That's in a mild climate and warm, by most people's standards, kitchen. If it's been used within the previous 24 hours, it's more like 10. If there's a fast preheat option, and you have it enabled, it could be five, for all I know, but I doubt it could be less than that just on a logical basis. Once the oven is hot, regenerate takes about 10 minutes for a full plate of food. So, here's the thing--I would never use it to reheat a bowl of oatmeal or a small dish of pasta. Those are things that do really well in the microwave, and only take two minutes. What microwaves do best (I'm assuming a really good microwave here--some cheapies can't really do any of this well) is heat a single, compact item. That is, warm a sandwich, melt cheese or butter, warm up a single piece of meat, a potato, a dish of cereal or pasta or soup or stew. What a microwave can't do is heat up a composed plate evenly or well--or even one of those frozen dinners that are supposed to be microwavable. What it doesn't do well is heat up a casserole dish of whatever, or several portions of food, or several different foods at once. What the regenerate cycle on the combi-steam (or approximations thereof) does best is warm up a plate or two of food, like the supper that went cold because an important call came in just as you were starting to eat. Or leftovers. Meat, starch, vegetables, all on one plate, all being warmed through gently without any drying, petrification, overcooking, or any of the other issues that come with it. Better than if it were kept in a warming drawer--the food tastes fresher. What the combi-steam also does well is heat up multiple sandwiches, or pieces of meat, or whatever. Things the microwave might do well on one of but can't possibly hope to do four of evenly and well. When you look at it that way, heat up times really don't matter. If the only difference to you between the two makers is this factor, I'd start by seeing what the companies say about heating times. Do they have accelerated oven heating? Also take your best kitchen thermometers to showrooms where they have them working, and test the before temperatures of the oven walls and air, time the heating, and check the after temperatures. I would guess that they're probably about the same, unless one has accelerated preheating and the other doesn't.

@JJ Mekai . Hi. For what it's worth, I decided on the Gaggenau CSO instead of the Miele. Three reasons. I preferred the two-knob controls -- which at first can be intimidating, but once you learn what's what, very easy to use. I knew I was not going to use the Miele pre-programmed recipes. The second reason was Gaggeenau having the broiler "under glass." As NYGuy says above, cleaning the broiler unit on the Miele would be a real pain. I took one of the Miele CSO classes; the instructor was touting her "invention" of wrapping a damp paper towel around a fork and sticking it every which way along the broiler element to clean it. I have read, though, that the new models have a detachable boiler unit for easier cleaning. Finally, I got a very good deal on a scratch-and-dent model that came with the complete warranty. That still made the Gaggenau more expensive than the Miele, but I got the side opening door and self-cleaning feature as well. Have been very happy with the choice, especially for baking bread and cooking veggies using steeam. Pizza also cooks well. When we've had lots of people over to make pizza, I put a pizza stone (not Gaggenau's version) on the bottom rack, heat the oven for an hour and then also use the broiler. Works as well as the regular oven, even without having bottom heating. Like anything new, there is a learning curve -- and I am still learning. My only regret is not getting the Gaggenau wall oven. There I went with the Miele purely because of price. It's been fine, but I miss the knob controls and the side opening door. As in so much of life, compromise rules the day!