The Tostato

Toast as it was intended to be.

I’ll tell you a secret: even as a trained chef, I still burn toast. You wake up, your brain is on autopilot, you throw a slice into the toaster — and instead of a polite reminder that your toast is done, you’re reminded by the smell of someone lighting a small fire.

In comes the not-so-humble toaster, The Tostato. Choose one of three levels of brown, from light to dark. The catch: this toaster has a colour imaging sensor. Controlled by a microcomputer in the base, it analyses the colour of the bread being inserted — dark rye sourdough or fluffy enriched white — then moves the slice back and forth on a conveyor belt, checking the colour on every pass until it matches what you asked for.

Undoubtedly the best way to make toast is in the oven, under the grill, cooked exactly right — but doing that for one person is wasteful. If preparing something in a very particular way is what makes it authentic, a normal toaster is doing quite a bad job. The Tostato gives you the closest thing to perfect: perfection. Making it truly authentic.

Recommended: top your toast with brunoised cherry tomato and white onion, a touch of fresh chilli, a generous amount of freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano, whole basil leaves — and don’t forget the extra virgin olive oil.