I can appreciate your situation, Pemfan. There are some "better" recirculating hoods --- not just more powerful as homepro notes but also with better capture area. The biggest problem with OTRs is that they mostly just cover the back burners. Not a whole lot of benefit to them in recirculating mode. That said, I've seen NYC kitchens that were smaller than the small antique bathrooms in my century+ year-old house. If you got somewhere to hang or stash a MW, do it. If you don't, .... well, I know folks who used window fans and other stop gaps. We work with the kitchens we have. As for "more powerful" burners, I have to ask about how you cook. Bigger burners are best for larger pans -- ones with bases of at least 10 inches in diameter and sometimes 12 or more. How many and how often do you figure on working with four big pots at a time? Or five, if you get a five burner range? If you are going to be using two big pans on the front, (say a 12" diameter LC fry pan and a 5 to 7 quart LC oven/casserole/pot) s what will you be using in the back. Maybe a couple of smaller pans (say. a 3 quart and 2 quart LeCrueset sauce pan?) If the latter, then you actually could be better off with the typically smaller back burners of major brand ranges. Another thought to consider: one of the advantages of most pro-style rangetops is that the burners tend to be spaced wider apart so it is easier to run four large pots at once. Major brand ranges generally have the burners on 9" centers (front to back) where that distance will be 11 inches apart, or wider, on pro-style ranges. YOu may want to check that on the Ilve if you are still considering it. IIRC, the burner spacer on the Ilve stove is even narrower per the Euro-style standards. Finally, as has been suggested here recently in some other threads, you'd probably find it a lot more convenient to get a four burner stove and find a place to stash a 120v portable induction cooktop (say a Duxtop 9100 or Max Burton 6400) which you could pull out and use on those times you need five burners. Still, if you have your heart set on a five burner unit, a fried of mine recently got a very good deal on a "ding-n-bing" GE Cafe range. (I almost bought one myself three ago when I was stove shopping, but I got outbid and wound up with an NXR from Costco, instead). I know a number of people who are happily using five-burner models from the GE Profile line, or the Frigidaire Gallery line. Somebody above suggested an Electrolux range which also might work well for you but I would check the owner's/user's guide to be sure you can light the burners manually in the event of a power outage. Some E'lux and Whirlpool Corp. products run all controls through an electronic control panel which means you can't light the top burners manually. For four burner units, I;d suggest the same brands plus Bosch. (IIRC, some Bosch gas ranges are made under subcontract with Elux/Frigidaire to somewhat different specs.) A couple friends have has Bosch ranges and been pleased.

Hi everyone, I bought my Ilve 48 inch propane range in 2020. The design is beautiful and fits to my decor. I had a new kitchen put in and really didn’t start using it until close to the end of 2020. Unfortunately right after the warranty expired the large oven element broke right before the holidays. It’s fixed now but I am very disappointed in the oven since we barely even used it. We had to wait 8 weeks as the parts are made to order. When the repair guys replaced the element, the stove had spaghetti wiring. They easily pulled out of the connections and were only attached on the styrofoam backing. Hopefully they have addressed this and cleaned up their wiring. A friend ordered Bertozzoni and told me they had spaghetti wiring but were able to purchase an extra package to neaten everything up. I don’t know if others are starting to see problems now after 4 years being on the market. Love to hear from others.

Hello! something strange haooened to me and i wanted to see if anyone had insight. I had worked with an Ilve consultant (out of New Jersey) at the begininng of the year to quote out an Ilve Nostalgie 48inch range. I chose Ilve over Hallman mostly because I had heard bad things about Hallman’s customer service. Well personal stuff came up and we had to post-pone our kitchen renovation to 2022, when i went to contact the Ilve rep to finally complete my order I received an OOO/maternity leave email bounce back. Not a big deal (congrats to her!) but the sales phone number her OOO email provided was answered by someone who answered as ”Hallman.” Are they now the same company? Also the price went up $2,000 from January.. crazy!

Just an FYI for those buying induction for the first time: you may need new cookware. I’ve only ever had induction once and everything took FOREVER to cook/boil when we first started using it. It was so frustrating I did a bunch of research and learned that induction only works well if your cookware has a perfectly flat bottom so the full pan bottom is in contact with the burner. Went to bed bath and beyond and started taking pans out of all the boxes and placing them on the floor to see if they fully made contact. It was surprising how few did! Finally bought the flattest bottomed pans I could find. Problem solved after that. Note this was in 2009-2010 so maybe newer models have resolved this issue. But I have no interested in trying again - gas for me all the way. Hated cleaning it (thought it would so easy but mine wasn’t) and even though I figured out the pan issue I always felt it wasn’t as good as gas.