The ultimate guide to choosing the best commercial oven for your kitchen

When it comes to powering your commercial oven, the choice between gas and electric models is a significant consideration. Many believe that professional gas ovens are quicker to heat up and provide more consistent temperatures. However, today’s technologies allow both gas and electric ovens to perform with high quality and quick heating times. Commercial electric ovens, for instance, are often more energy-efficient, converting a higher percentage of energy into heat and typically easier to install since they do not require gas lines.

Despite the cost differences in various countries, one thing is certain: professional electric ovens are the most sustainable choice in an energy-hungry foodservice world. They allow the use of renewable energy sources, contributing to a greener future and potentially saving energy.

To make an informed decision, we at Unox provide a Consumption Calculator directly on our website. By inputting information like utility costs and your kitchen habits, you can compare various commercial oven models and determine the most suitable choice for your needs, even among our ENERGY STAR® certified ranges. As the world leader in the number of certified ovens, we offer an extensive selection to meet every requirement

Whether you run a small café, a large restaurant, or even a large central kitchen, there are various professional oven types in different sizes to meet the needs of every kitchen. From small commercial ovens to large 20 trays commercial ovens, there’s an oven for every space. Unox ovens are designed with space optimization in mind, offering a wide range of options while also allowing you to maximize vertical space in the kitchen, rather than taking up valuable floor space.

For each type of Unox oven, there are different models to choose from. Here are some available options:

• Countertop ovens: choose from a wide range of models, from 3-tray commercial ovens to 10-tray commercial ovens.

• Compact ovens: if you're looking for compact and small ovens that maximize performance in limited space, you can select from our options ranging from 1-tray to 3 or 4-tray ovens, with various footprints available, including models with just a 60 cm depth.

• BIG ovens: designed for high-volume use in central kitchens or large laboratories, you can choose from a wide range of commercial ovens, from 10 to 16 trays, and even up to 20 trays, making the most of vertical space, such as with our BIG Compact models featuring a depth of 100 cm.

A smart investment is one that lasts over time, which is why cleaning and maintenance are crucial. But how can you best clean your commercial oven? It really depends on the kind of business you run. In pastry shops and bakeries, where residues are typically limited to crumbs and light deposits, manual cleaning is often sufficient. In these cases, it’s crucial to use professional detergents specifically formulated for each oven model to ensure safe, effective cleaning while protecting every component, from stainless steel surfaces to glass panels and the cooking chamber.

However, in environments like restaurants, delis, or professional kitchens where meat and complex dishes are regularly cooked, commercial ovens are exposed to heavier, stubborn residues and grease. Here, manual cleaning becomes time-consuming and demanding. That’s where self-cleaning ovens come in as a smart, hygienic, and time-saving solution.

For this reason, the majority of our commercial oven ranges are self-cleaning. Our self-cleaning professional ovens come equipped with built-in automatic cleaning programs that can be scheduled to save time and labor, especially at the end of the day. With smart technologies, these ovens minimize water and energy waste during the cleaning process, ensuring both efficiency and sustainability.

But that’s not all. When you purchase an Unox commercial oven, you also gain access to a dedicated support team, ready to address any issues quickly. We offer scheduled maintenance programs and warranties on spare parts, ensuring complete peace of mind.

The priority for a restaurant is versatility and guaranteed quality, ensuring customers return for more. The best commercial oven for most restaurants must:

• Support a variety of cooking methods to expand menu options, including vegan and other dietary preferences or seasonal changes;
• Guarantee reliable, repeatable performance every time;
• Be easy to use, even for less experienced staff, with customizable cooking programs or pre-set recipes from the head chef;
• Minimize water and energy consumption while maximizing performance.

Unox commercial ovens not only meet every single need but can do much more, thanks to cutting-edge technologies that are becoming essential in the kitchen. The best commercial oven ranges for restaurants and gastronomy are the CHEFTOP MIND.Maps^™ lines, offering versatility and reliability. They can grill, fry, roast, sauté, smoke, steam, and much more. Thanks to automatic cooking cycles and intelligent functions, they ensure perfect results with minimal energy waste. For example, with ADAPTIVE.Cooking™ technology, these ovens automatically adjust cooking time, temperature, and humidity based on the type and volume of food being cooked, ensuring perfect results every time. This way, even less experienced staff can cook with the parameters set by the chef, thanks to saved programs.

For an even more advanced kitchen experience, there’s our CHEFTOP-X^™ line, a commercial oven innovation champion that has earned several awards over time for its incredible capabilities. One of its unique features is that it integrates artificial intelligence. The CHEFTOP-X^™ can understand cooking feedback at the end of each cycle and learn how to achieve the perfect result every time. It can even recognize the food you put in, with its optical sensor, and has a built-in microphone, so you can literally talk to the oven. A truly unprecedented feature in the market.

Finding the best commercial oven for bakeries and pastry shops is crucial to achieving consistently high-quality results in every batch of baked goods. The ideal combi oven for bakeries and pastry shops should be designed to handle the specific needs of both bread baking and pastry production. To meet the demands of a busy commercial kitchen, the perfect oven must:

• Guarantee precise temperature and humidity control in the baking chamber;
• Be capable of baking both fresh and frozen dough with consistent results on every baking tray;
• Manage delicate food items, such as pastries, with precision;
• Offer customizable cooking programs that can be adjusted based on the specific needs of the baker;
• Be energy-efficient to reduce utility costs.

When it comes to selecting the best commercial oven for your bakery or pastry shop, Unox offers top-of-the-line options that deliver exceptional performance and precision. The BAKERTOP MIND.Maps™ commercial combi ovens are specifically designed for bakeries, providing precise temperature and humidity control to ensure perfect baking results every time. Features like CLIMALUX™ technology allow the oven to monitor and adjust humidity levels automatically, ensuring optimal conditions for delicate products like croissants, pastries, and even pizzas. The dual-reverse fan system guarantees uniform cooking on every spot of the tray, achieving consistent results across all baked goods. Plus, saved programs with customized parameters ensure consistent quality in every batch.

For an even more intelligent baking experience, Unox’s BAKERTOP-X™ ovens take innovation a step further. These advanced commercial ovens are capable of “seeing” the food you’re baking, automatically recognizing whether it's croissants, bread, or other baked goods, and selecting the appropriate cooking program for each. And it doesn’t stop there. These ovens are also energy-efficient, featuring SMART.Energy, a function that keeps track of energy consumption, even putting the oven in standby mode when it detects no food inside, reducing unnecessary energy use.

Choosing the best commercial oven for bars, cafes, and fast food establishments is essential for ensuring speed, efficiency, and versatility in a fast-paced environment. The ideal professional oven should be designed to meet the specific needs of these small kitchens while optimizing space and performance. Key requirements include:

• Fast heating and cooking times to serve customers quickly.
• Compactness to fit into small kitchen spaces, optimizing the available area.
• Support for multiple cooking methods, such as convection and infrared, for greater versatility in preparing a variety of foods, from sandwiches to pastries.
• Ventless technology to eliminate the need for an external hood, making installation and operation easier.
• Ease of use with programmable settings for consistent results, ideal for operators of varying levels of experience.
• Energy efficiency to reduce electricity consumption, helping to lower operating costs.
• Uniform heating to ensure that items like pastries, sandwiches, and pre-cooked meals are cooked evenly and perfectly.
• Easy-to-clean design for simple and efficient daily maintenance.

For a commercial oven for quick-service restaurants (QSR), the requirements become even more specific, including:

• Ensuring the same cooking standard in multiple stores.
• Non-stop production, with maintenance support to avoid downtime and ensure continuous operation.
• Safety and quality, by being prepared for inspections and ensuring compliance with food safety standards in all stores.

Unox offers a range of commercial speed ovens specifically designed to meet the demands of fast-paced environments such as bars, cafes, and fast food establishments. With innovative solutions and cutting-edge technology, Unox has become a market leader in this sector. Our professional ovens provide distinct advantages, making them the ideal choice for operations that prioritize speed, efficiency, and quality.

A standout model in Unox's range is the SPEED-X™, the world’s first self-cleaning commercial combi speed oven. Thanks to its advanced features, the SPEED-X™ consistently delivers both speed and exceptional food quality, even during the busiest hours while allowing operators to save time by eliminating the need for manual cleaning at the end of the shift. It can cook an entire chicken to perfection in just 7 minutes, or prepare focaccia, chicken sandwiches, wraps, and mac & cheese in a single batch, ready in just 75 seconds.

For bars and cafes that require a versatile commercial speed oven capable of quick cooking, the SPEED.Pro™ is an excellent option. This dual-function oven combines convection cooking and speed oven technology, providing the flexibility to quickly and efficiently prepare a variety of dishes, from sandwiches to baked goods. Its multi-portion cooking capabilities with microwave support allow for the efficient reheating of several items at once, such as sandwiches in 1.15 minutes, fries in 2 minutes and mozzarella sticks in 3 minutes.

The latest addition to the range, the SPEED.Compact™, is a commercial compact oven with one of the smallest footprints, designed to meet the fast food sector’s need for speed, efficiency, and versatility. It is engineered to fit perfectly into any environment, optimize space on the counter, and simplify use, ensuring the best return on investment. It is perfect for serving snacks, ready meals, and frozen bakery products in record time. For example, a waffle or muffin is ready in just 30 seconds, while a stuffed sandwich or club sandwich cooks in just 75 seconds, consistently delivering excellent results.

However, Unox’s rapid cooking ovens are not the only solutions suited for fast food operations. The compact models of our CHEFTOP MIND.Maps™ and CHEFTOP-X™ commercial ovens are also popular choices, particularly for fast food restaurants and chains due to their versatility.

Additionally, it’s not just our cutting-edge ovens that make the difference. Our next-generation apps also provide unique advantages. For example, our Data Driven Cooking app allows you to share recipes and cooking standards with your network of ovens with just one click, or monitor usage data and easily access documents for inspections.

Unox stands out as a leading brand in the commercial oven industry, not only for the technological innovation that continues to elevate kitchens around the world but also for its vast range of professional ovens. With over 460 models, ranging from convection ovens, combi ovens, speed ovens, and many others, Unox offers solutions that cater to every type of business in the foodservice sector.

We focus not only on providing high-quality kitchen equipment and sustainable solutions that help save costs, but also on delivering outstanding customer service. Our commitment to our clients' success is at the heart of everything we do. That's why we offer not just advanced such as this guide and practical tools like the previously mentioned Consumption Calculator or our popular Comparator.

The Unox Comparator allows users to compare different ranges of commercial ovens and view a complete sheet of all the characteristics of each oven being compared. This way, choosing the right professional oven becomes even easier.

Want to test this tool? Visit our website, browse through all our ovens, select the ones you're most interested in, and by clicking on "compare," you’ll get a clear and complete overview.