"An expensive blender that means business" — a home economist reviews the Smeg Professional Blender

Smeg is a brand that’s synonymous with brightly colored retro-style appliances. But the Smeg Professional High Performance Blender is a sleek and modern blender that takes itself way more seriously. That said, at well over double the price of a Smeg 50’s style blender, is it worth it and will it make its way onto our list of the best blenders?

This sleek silver-colored blender is available with either black or white side panels, but there are no pastel colors to choose from like with most other Smeg small appliances. So I set it up in my kitchen at home and used all the settings to put it to the test for a week.

The results were mixed, so whether it’s worth the investment will depend on how you intend to use it. I found it to be adept at pulverizing hard ingredients like ice, nuts, and frozen fruits. But some smoothies needed a second blend, and the blades can get very hot, which is a big downside.

Smeg Professional High Performance Blender review: Price and availability

The Smeg Professional High Performance Blender is currently available in the US for $429.99 and in the UK priced at £499.95. You can buy it directly from Smeg or via multiple other online retailers. The price is the same for both the black and white versions.

Smeg Professional High Performance Blender review: Design

I could tell just from the weight of the box that this is a heavy blender. And sure enough, the base is weighty and solid, but it’s also modern and streamlined. My first impression is that the shape is more elegant than some other high performance blenders I’ve reviewed from the likes of Vitamix and Blendtec.

The Tritan plastic blending jar feels solid and has markers in cups, ounces, liters and milliliters. But the markers are molded into the clear plastic, not printed, so they’re quite faint and tricky to see. The jar can be placed onto the base with the handle to either the left or the right, which is great and makes it easy to use for left and right handers.

The lid pushes firmly into position and creates a tight seal. A measuring cap in the center of the lid can be removed to pour in additional ingredients or insert the tamper to push tough mixes back towards the blades. There’s also a cleaning brush and a spatula provided.

The vacuum pump requires a separate vacuum pump cap to be inserted into the lid. It also requires four AA batteries, which I find somewhat annoying, and wish it could be rechargeable.

The control panel is very straightforward. The one touch program buttons are all in a row along the top. Then there’s a large central screen on the front, with a wheel surrounding it that turns to increase or decrease through the nine manual speeds.

The screen displays a countdown timer when blending using a one touch program. Otherwise, if you’re manually controlling the speed, it counts up, so you can see how long it’s been blending for. There’s a power button hidden on the side, but the front screen/ dial works as a start/ stop button when you press it.

The only other setting to know about is the family serve and single serve options for some of the preset programs. They’re automatically set to family serve, but if you’re blending a single serve smoothie for example, you simply twist the dial to adjust to one person and the preset time adjusts accordingly.

Smeg Professional High Performance Blender review: Performance

The first thing I tried was a safety test to see if it would start up without the lid on, which it does. This is particularly noteworthy if you have small children in the house.

Green Smoothie Mode

For my first smoothie, I followed a recipe in the included recipe book for a spinach and kiwi green smoothie. The recipe includes a lot of spinach, as well as kiwi fruit, whole almonds and some milk.

I followed the recipe to the letter, but I cut the quantities in half so that I only made a single serving. I attached the vacuum pump and started it to remove the air, this took 37 seconds. Then I selected the green smoothie mode, but adjusted it from family serve to single serve with a quick twist of the dial.

It blitzed the smoothie for 35 seconds and the large countdown timer on the front of the dial made it easy to see how long was left. When I poured out the green liquid, I could immediately tell that it wasn’t lump free.

The spinach leaves and the kiwi had been completely liquified, an impressive achievement in such a short blending cycle. However, there were some very chunky pieces of almond left in the drink, which was a shame, and also surprising given that this is Smeg’s recipe.

Frozen Dessert Mode

There’s a recipe in the included book for strawberry ice cream cookie sandwiches. I didn’t bother with the cookies, but I did make the strawberry ice cream because I’m trying to cut down on ultra-processed foods and this three-ingredient recipe looked like a great alternative to processed ice cream.

I chopped up and froze the strawberry pieces and then added them with yogurt and honey to the blender, so in reality it’s more of a frozen yogurt than an ice cream. I switched on the frozen dessert mode, which has a preset time of 1 ½ minutes. 

The recipe didn’t suggest I’d need to use the tamper, but after 30 seconds most of the frozen strawberries were lodged high above the blades and very little was happening.

So I started the program again, but this time I inserted the tamper and continually pushed the ingredients down towards the blades. The result was a pleasingly creamy, smooth and flavorful strawberry frozen dessert. And surprisingly, a lot of the strawberry seeds must have been pulverized as it didn’t have a gritty seedy texture. 

Ice Crush Mode

For this I added a whole tray of ice cubes (5.3 oz/ 150g) and it automatically started counting down from 35 seconds. However, after 20 seconds, when I could no longer hear large pieces of ice being broken up, I stopped it.

The ice was all very evenly crushed, with no melting and no large chunks. This was the noisiest test I did, hitting around 96dB on my noise meter. But crushing ice is never a quiet task.

Smoothie Mode

To make a couple of portions of a chocolate protein shake, I added coconut milk, protein powder, a sliced banana, peanut butter, cocoa powder and a big handful of ice. I used the smoothie mode, and since it was more than a single serve portion, I left it on family serve, which meant the blend time was 45 seconds.

The blended drink was incredibly smooth and creamy, it was lightly aerated but not frothy. The powders were well mixed in and the ice had been completely broken down too.

Next time I made two portions of frozen mixed berries, coconut milk, Greek yogurt, and protein powder smoothie. When I poured the smoothie out after the 45 second program, I noticed there were still some whole berries, so I poured it back into the jar and ran the program for a second time.

After the second blitz, all the berries had been liquidized. The smoothie was nicely mixed, though the seeds from the berries were still present, giving it a grittiness. 

Manual Mode

There’s a recipe for soup in the recipe book that instructs you to blend on the highest speed for 5 minutes to create a hot soup. I didn’t follow the recipe, but I did use the same ratio of broth to vegetables when I made leek and potato soup.

Because the blender only warms the ingredients, I made sure to fry off the leek and onion first. I added the broth, leek and onion, and some mashed potato to the blender. All the ingredients were at room temperature when I added them. At the end of the 5 minute blend, the soup was a warm 130F/ 54C. Once I poured it into a bowl though, I still had to microwave it to get it hot enough to serve for lunch.

Overall, the soup was tasty and perfectly smooth, and doing it this way saved using a pan and then having to transfer hot soup into the blender to liquidize it.

I also followed a recipe in the book for what they call a hazelnut cream, but it’s mainly hazelnuts and cocoa so I was hoping for a healthier version of my favorite chocolate hazelnut spread.

I blended the hazelnuts on speed 5 for about 1 ½ minutes, continually pushing the nuts down towards the blade with the tamper, until they started to resemble a somewhat buttery texture. The mixture was noticeably warm when I opened it to add in the cocoa powder, sugar and oil. I then blended for a further 1 minute 45 seconds. At this point it was well mixed but quite dry and crumbly, so I added an extra 2 tablespoons of oil.

The end result was still quite dry, with a texture that resembled cookie dough. So it wasn’t quite the chocolatey hazelnut spread I had in mind, but it was smooth and tasty nonetheless. However, it had been significantly warmed during the blending process. The finished nut butter was 150F/ 65C - which is warmer than the soup was!

How do you clean the Smeg Professional High Performance Blender?

The easiest way to clean the blender is by using the auto clean mode. You simply have to add some warm water, a couple of drops of dish washing liquid and then the 1 minute auto clean blitzes off most residues so you can just pour the dirt down the sink. And there’s a cleaning brush included in the box that’ll help with cleaning tricky areas like around the seal of the lid.

But at 90dB, the auto clean mode isn’t exactly quiet, so if you need a more peaceful clean up solution, the jar and most of the accessories can go into the dishwasher, apart from the vacuum pump.

How does the Smeg Professional High Performance Blender compare?

The similarly priced Breville the Super Q blender is currently topping our best blender guide. It’s a higher wattage blender that offers 12 speeds and a larger 68 oz capacity, so is certainly worthy of consideration. But it’s bulkier and heavier which may be off-putting, that said, it’s an incredibly capable blender.

Alternatively, if you’re considering a more budget-friendly option, the Ninja Professional Plus is our current budget choice on our best blender list. It has a huge 72 oz capacity and offers excellent performance at a great price. Though it does only offer three blend speeds and three auto programs. 

Should you buy the Smeg Professional High Performance Blender?

This is undoubtedly a well-built and powerful blender, but it’s not the best blender I’ve tried. I experienced a soup that wasn’t warm enough and a nut butter that was too warm. What’s more, not every smoothie was lump free at the end of the smoothie program.

That being said, an additional blend cycle for a smoothie isn’t the end of the world. And it coped well making a frozen yogurt and blitzing ice, so it’ll depend on what you plan to use it for. It looks great on the counter and is easy to clean. I just can’t help thinking that for the premium price tag, I want faultless performance.