Inspired over a hotel breakfast

I first fell for the idea of a Dualit toaster on holiday, in one of those small, nice hotels where breakfast means helping yourself. You slot your own bread in, and there's a lever you push down and can lift back up at any point to check on the toast. I loved that. I thought they looked incredibly stylish, sitting there among the jam and the cereal.

So when we finally had the spare cash to actually buy one, after too many tinny cheap alternatives, I was, if I'm honest, on the side of the nicer-but-still-cheaper set. My husband wanted the real thing. We ordered a Classic Kettle and a 4 Slice NewGen Classic Toaster in January 2025, both in Eucalyptus, and he was right. He usually is.

What you actually notice, day to day

The toaster has a bagel setting that only toasts one side, which my husband is fastidious about using correctly. I genuinely couldn't tell you which side it does. What I do know is the ticking sound it makes while it's on, which has a lovely retro feel, and the lever itself, which has a proper, satisfying action to it. Not the dead click of a cheap toaster. Something that feels built to be pushed down and lifted thousands of times.

The kettle gets used multiple times a day, easily more than the toaster. The lid is slightly stiff, stiffer than you'd expect, and rather than feeling like a fault, it's actually reassuring. Nothing about it feels flimsy. It polishes up well too, chrome that still looks the part well over a year into being picked up, filled and put down again.

Not really discounted, and that's kind of the point

We had a good look around before buying, and one thing that stood out was that Dualit products are never really discounted. We ordered directly from Dualit rather than through anyone else. That felt reassuring, it's a British brand, still hand-assembled the way it's always been, and if something goes wrong the plan is to repair it rather than replace it. That's becoming increasingly rare, and it mattered to us more than it might have a few years ago.

Why eucalyptus

Neither of us can quite remember whose idea the colour was in the end. What we do know is what we didn't want, navy or grey, because our kitchen already leans hard into both. Eucalyptus was the one that stood out against the navy cabinets and white worktop without just blending into everything else already there.

The one thing I'd change

We're in a proper hard water area, and the kettle needs descaling regularly. That's not really a mark against the kettle, more an admission that I didn't start doing it early enough. I wish I had.

Moving house with it

We're a couple of weeks off the move now, and there's no doubt about the kettle and toaster coming with us. I'd genuinely like them to be with us for every move after this one too.

Was it worth £370?

This is an earlier check-in than most of what we write about here. Eighteen months isn't fifteen years of sofa longing, or five years of shelving holding up in daily use. But it's enough to know the lever hasn't loosened, the kettle still feels solid, and neither of us has once thought about the cheaper set we didn't buy.

£149.99 for the kettle and £219.99 for the toaster is a lot to spend on two kitchen appliances that plenty of people spend a tenth of on. But we've had cheap versions of both before, more than once, and watched them break within a year or two. Cost per use, and cost per year, this is already looking like the better deal. More tellingly, neither of us has once thought about the cheaper set we nearly bought.

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Things Worth Keeping is about items we saved up for, lived with for years, and can now say plainly whether they earned their keep. We'll also start writing about things we're hoping to buy, before we know how they'll hold up. We'll always be clear when a link is affiliate. It never changes the verdict.