Smeg High Performance Blender review: Super powerful blending to level up your kitchen skills

When it comes to the blender market, the Smeg High Performance Blender sits firmly in the “all-singing all-dancing countertop jug machine” category, and has an RRP to match. But is it worth spending big on this particular blender, or are you in danger of being seduced by the big name? With one eye on the purse strings and another on performance, I put the most advanced blender yet from Smeg’s iconic design house through its paces.

From soups to sauces, nuts to mushy foods, leafy greens and everything in-between, I blitzed my way through a range of ingredients to see how the Smeg High Performance Blender (BLC02WHMUK) fared. Read on to see how well it whizzed through my testing.

Smeg High Performance Blender review: What do you get for the money?

There’s no getting around the fact that £400 on a blender feels like a lot. But, if you’re a Smeg devotee then you’ll be used to spending big on their appliances, and there are plenty of other brands out there with prices higher than this for similar blenders.

So, what’s the deal? The Smeg High Performance Blender uses a 1,400W motor – which should be powerful enough to deal with all manner of ingredients – and has a large lidded 1.5l jug attached to super sharp blending blades. The lid of the jug features a removable inner section to allow you to add ingredients as you go and the jug has a spout for clean pouring. It’s all sturdy and feels like it would last; no flimsy plastic parts here.

The box also includes a few accessories. There’s a tamp for manoeuvring the mixture in-between blending (you’ll be needing that), along with a silicon spatula for scraping down the sides and blades, and a cleaning brush. But the jewel in the crown of this blender is the addition of a vacuum pump – meaning you can batch cook smoothies, soups and sauces and store them without oxidisation, so your concoctions stay fresh and brightly coloured until drinking.

Design-wise, this appliance has the same high quality, retro styling as all of the Smeg range. The body is sleek and attractive, and at the moment is available in two classic colour finishes: matte black or the matte white shown here.

Smeg High Performance Blender review: What’s good about it?

This blender is much more than just a pretty face. There’s nine speeds to choose from using the simple control knob on the front of the unit body as well as preset modes – smoothie, green smoothie, frozen dessert, ice crush and autoclean – and a pulse button. Within these you can also opt to use family serve or single serve mode. The smoothie and green smoothie programmes are great, giving deliciously smooth and tasty results using either fresh or frozen fruit as long as you take care to add the ingredients in its preferred order (frozen stuff last). My green smoothie of banana, almond milk, kale and protein powder emerged well blended and free from any fibrous or leafy bits.

It’s one of the quietest blenders I’ve tried for a while, even with dry ingredients and ice, which it deals with like a master. It says it can manage flour, butter, creams and nut milk, but after testing with cashews, I’d suggest working with large amounts to make the most of the blender – otherwise it will just spatter around the sides.

One quirky feature I really liked about this blender is that it can also heat soup from room temperature using the manual blending cycle for a maximum of 6 minutes. I tested this with a potato, lamb and preserved lemon soup and it gave a perfectly silky, professional texture and saved me using another appliance for heating it.

The clean up is easy, with an autoclean cycle should you need it, but frankly I’d just pop everything save the blades into the dishwasher. I’d prefer if the blade came away from the jug, but unless you leave any mixtures to dry on this won’t be a problem for cleaning by hand.

Smeg High Performance Blender review: What could be better?

This is a lovely blender and a real pleasure to use, but I feel like if I’m spending this amount then I want perfection. And so, when I tested the frozen dessert recipe using the preset function, I was a bit underwhelmed. Despite following the instructions to the letter, the mixture just would not blend. I had to keep stopping the programme to dislodge the fruit, and the tamp was ineffective. I think over time you’d need to practice with different recipes and blending times to perfect the frozen dessert aspect.

One other negative thing I saw during testing was that some of my soup escaped from the lid during blending, even though I had not overfilled the jug.

In a dream scenario, I’d also like to see a weighing function within the jug, which some other high-end blenders incorporate.

Smeg High Performance Blender review: Should you buy it?

If you spot this blender at a discounted price, then I highly recommend you snap it up. It’s built to last and should have you blitzing and blending your way through smoothies, milkshakes, cocktails and sauces for years to come. Frozen desserts, nut butters and nut milks could also be yours in minutes, with a bit of practice.

If your scope for blending will stay strictly in the smoothie-making sphere then I probably wouldn’t advise this particular model. Even when discounted, there are plenty of other blenders out there to do a perfectly good job of making a smoothie without having to spend several hundred pounds; indeed, you might like to check out the Smeg Personal Blender instead.

However, if you’re in the market for a more serious bit of kitchen kit to see you through a range of culinary tasks – particularly ice crushing and properly velvety soups and sauces – then this machine comes highly recommended. The vacuum pump is a valuable bonus too, if you are organised enough to batch make your healthy smoothies. It’s well built, reliable, powerful and looks super premium on the worktop – this is one machine you won’t want to hide away in the cupboard.