New Kitchen Nirvana:
A Filler for Every Pot
Nov. 4, 2003 -- It is this year's version of the see-through refrigerator. Or wine cooler. Or concrete countertop. As many people still contemplate the pro and cons of double-deep sinks, the pot filler has become the latest must-have item for high-end kitchens.
For those not in the know, a pot filler is essentially a faucet. It is a movable spout installed on the back wall of a stove, and it allows people to place pots, woks or kettles directly on burners and fill them with tap water -- alleviating the indignity of heaving them full and sloshing from the nearby sink.
Until recently, the pot filler was found mostly in restaurants, where gigantic pots are often impossible to hoist when full of water. But despite the fact that few people are cooking linguine for 87 on a nightly basis, this clever solution has leapt to the home.
That is because a much bigger trend has taken over the residential kitchen business: The ceaseless addition of restaurant-grade appliances even as most people do less heavy-duty cooking than ever. Just because you're no Rocco DiSpirito, doesn't mean you can't have a kitchen like his. Thus, the industrial mixer begat the pricey bread machine begat the commercial-grade refrigerator begat the six-burner stove, and so on and so forth until the pot filler. Whether you need any of these items does not seem to be the point.
"There are practical reasons why people are attracted to different new things and then there are other reasons," says Mitchell Weissberg of Krup's Kitchen & Bath Ltd. in Manhattan, who has seen trends like pot fillers come and go. He and other retailers think homeowners see the pot filler as "the sizzle" to the expensive ranges they have added to their kitchens in recent years.
I'm not sure a piece of swiveling metal qualifies as sizzle. But while pot fillers started off simple enough -- a single cold-water chrome spigot with one on-off valve and limited ranges of movement (about nine inches) -- the choices are now numerous.
Pot fillers range in price from $125 to up $800 (if you get double spigots in the best finish) and can be easily added if new plumbing is already being installed during a kitchen remodeling job. Some look like basic faucets, others fold flush to the wall, and still others are twisty and highly stylish.
My favorite remains the most stripped-down version -- done in a striking style by Dornbracht, a high-end maker of all kinds of home supplies. Its Tara design, in which the on-off valve is an elegant plus-sign shape, is one of the more copied styles around. It is installed sticking out from the wall like a normal faucet with a pivot that is also extendable to almost 22 inches. That version in chrome retails for about $279. In the trendier platinum matte, it sells for about $419. Double valves with both hot and cold spigots run a little less than double the cost.
My second choice, from Grohe, has a different, more useful design that collapses almost flat against the wall and has a wider amount of range to manipulate the faucet. This is a nice touch, for those who like the tidiness of the slim style and don't want the fixture to be quite so prominent, while also extending a lot. Best of all, the single-faucet Grohe, which reaches about 20 inches, has no traditional pronged on-off handles. Instead, it has two straight valve handles, one located conveniently right near the end of the spigot, so you don't have to reach over a hot stove to add more water. It retails for around $500.
Franke makes a similar type of pot filler, but with a more squiggly and noticeable look in a double U-shape fully extended. It also has two valves, one pronged and one flat and reaches about 21 inches. Far more stylized, it's clearly for those who want to brandish it with drama. It sells for about $428 in chrome, $509 in satin nickel.
For those on a more modest budget, there are two excellent choices of pot fillers in both the more-traditional and foldable styles. Rohl's one-faucet, pivoting polished chrome pot filler with a spoke handle reaches about nine inches, but can be upgraded to 12 inches. It sells for $189. And Danze offers a twistier, dual-control fixture that extends to 15 inches. In chrome, it sells for about $125. The stainless steel version goes for about $25 more.
It is just such low prices that will likely allow the pot filler to be swinging from a lot of kitchens, even if it doesn't get much use. That is, until the next must-have gadget appears.
According to Mitchell Weissberg, who is as close to an appliance guru as it gets, a once unheralded tool of the lowly restaurant dish washer -- the "pre-rinse" pull-down spray -- is the likely follower to the pot-filler trend. It is, he says, "going to be very hot." Presumably, he's talking about more than just the water.
Speaking of hot water, there is one problem the pot filler won't solve, despite all its innovation. After you are done cooking, you will still have to carry a full pot of water from the stove to the sink to empty out what you had just so conveniently filled.
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