Published:
Readtime: 17 min
Every product is carefully selected by our editors and experts. If you buy from a link, we may earn a commission. Learn more. For more information on how we test products, click here.
Knowing a foodie means that you’re never too far from the next delicious bite or beverage. The second-best thing about knowing a foodie is that you have plenty of incredible gift options to choose from during holidays and special occasions. That brings us to the following guide, which comes fully loaded with epicurean-themed products such as coffee makers, pizza ovens, cooking essentials, cookbooks, and more. Here’s hoping the foodie in your life is willing to share.
Best Foodie Gifts at a Glance
- Best overall: Gozney Roccbox
- For the coffee lover: Breville The Barista Express
- For the home chef: Shun Classic 20cm Chef’s Knife
- For healthy eaters: Vitamix A2500i Ascent Series Smart Blender
RELATED: Make sure you also check out our ultimate list of gifts for men.
Gozney Tread Pizza Oven
Price: AUD$899
Eating pizza is one of the best things to do on the planet, and it can only be made better by making it yourself. Traditionally, dedicated pizza ovens are big brick-laid affairs built into the ground, and they don’t lend themselves very well to our modern ‘renter-friendly’ lifestyles. Enter Gozney, a brand focused entirely on making it easier than ever to make your own delicious, home-made pizzas regardless of where you are. The Tread here is billed as the most portable pizza oven in the world, and after we toyed around with it, we can confirm it.
Of course, you’ll need to supply your propane for fuel, but beyond that, you can simply take the Tread wherever you want to make a delicious meal, put together your dream pizza, and watch it cook. It’s dead simple and easily fits into a backyard cooking setup. Plus, you can just take it with you when you’re on the move.
CROSSRAY Smart Meat Probe
Price: from AUD$105
If you’re into smoked meats, steaks, and charcoal chicken, and you want to achieve a perfect cook every time without removing the meat from the barbeque or smoker, you’ll want to get your hands on a smart meat probe.
We’ve been using this wireless meat thermometer from CROSSRAY for a while now, and it’s a worthy upgrade from the primary temperature probe we used previously. The best part is you don’t have to remove the meat to check the temp, meaning the smoker stays up to temperature. It automatically connects to your smartphone through an app, and all you have to do is charge it with a basic USB port. The app also lets you monitor your over and food temp simultaneously, which is a bonus!
Traeger Grills Ultimate Smashed Burger Kit
Price: AU$230
While making burgers is easy, making a good burger is anything but. Anyone can throw together some meat, flatten it, and chuck it in a pan, but if you want to take your home-made meals to the next level, Traeger Grills’ Ultimate Smashed Burger Kit is a great first step.
The kit comes with three of the most important bits of kit you’ll need: a solidly-weighted grill press, enabling you to properly smash your burger; an XL spatula, allowing you to easily flip the burger to get adequate colouring on both sides; as well as a steam dome, which helps keep meat moist and perfectly cooked every time.
Get stuck in with this setup, and you’ll be making incredible smashed burgers in no time.
frank green Lunch Bundle
Price: AUD$200.95
Are you sick of meal-prepping a delicious meal, only to take it to work in a busted tupperware container which has probably been microwaved one too many times? Me too, and that’s what makes Frank Green’s Ultimate Lunch Bundle so enticing.
Firstly, you get two microwave-safe polypropylene food containers, complete with silicone lids, which fit inside of a bigger, stainless-steel container for easy transport. You’ll also get a cold pack that can be used to keep everything cool, though it doesn’t fit in the food container, as well as a set of stainless steel utensils with a dedicated transport pouch.
Finally, you get a 595ml ceramic reusable bottle to go along with it, completing the set. Plus, if you’re someone who constantly gets your lunch stolen, you can customise it to your hearts content when purchased through the Frank Green website: maybe monogram it with: ‘Hands Off’?
Our Place Always Pan Pro Titanium
Price: From $250
Made ‘forever-chemical free’, the Our Place Always Pan Pro is, by all accounts, an incredible pan for both enthusiasts and beginners alike. Compared to most pans, the Pan Pro is created with a tri-ply construction: with stainless steel on the outside, an aluminum core for conduction, and an incredibly durable titanium interior.
This means you can use metal utensils in the pan without fear of leaving scratches, can withstand temperatures as high as 535º C, and makes it dishwasher safe: a huge bonus in our ever-busy lives. You can get the pan in three sizes, or as part of a larger 6-or-10 piece package, and you can try it with a 100-day trial period, free shipping, and free returns, which we like quite a bit.
Ninja Foodi Dual Zone Air Fryer
Price: $249
We’ve been using the Ninja Foodie Dual Zone Air Fryer for the past year-or-so, and it has significantly sped up how quickly we’re able to get food on the table each night. While everyone has their favourite airfryer, we tend to favour the Foodi here thanks to the dual 3.8L baskets which allow you to cook separate parts of the meal at the same time.
You can set each sides individual temperature, how long it’ll cook for, as well as how it’ll cook: with Max Crisp, Air Fry, Air Roast, Bake, Reheat, and Dehydrate options all available. Plus, you can sync the two sides up to ensure they’ll finish at the same time, keeping meal prep easy.
Best of all? The non-stick crisper plates, as well as the buckets themselves, are completely dishwasher safe, meaning not only is cooking a breeze, but cleaning too.
Breville the Kitchen Wizz 16
Price: AU$729
A good food processor should make preparing meals an absolute breeze, and the Kitchen Wizz does exactly that. Featuring a number of helpful slicer attachments, and a wide 140mm chute to push veges of all shapes and sizes through, the Wizz will make short work of almost any prep you need done.
Plus, the bowl, chute, and attachments are all dishwasher safe, making clean-up as easy as possible.
Each slicer has a different job to do—slicing, shredding, french frying, mincing, and pureeing—but there’s also a ‘dough blade’ which aims to make preparing your own loaf of bread even simpler. The Wizz comes with a handy container for each of its attachments as well, which helps keep everything safe and secure (and not lost in random cupboards or drawers when you actually need them).
Professional Mandoline in Multi
Price: 184.95
Need a bit more precision in your prep? Progressive’s Professional Mandoline will deliver that with ease, with a number of different blade types allowing you to prepare vegetables in multiple ways: with an adjustable thickness slider, waffle and crinkle cut styles, as well as thick and thin julienne slicing.
Mandolines can be quite dangerous if used improperly, but Progressive’s effort here features non-stick feet to hold the device in place, as well as an attached hand-guard to keep your fingers out of harm’s way.
The Three Amigos 3 Pack
Price: Varies
If you’re after something a bit different this Father’s Day, consider getting dad some delicious tinned fish. It sounds a bit crazy, but we’ve ordered from The Canned Company a few times and every tin we’ve cracked into has been incredibly flavourful, fresh, and made for incredibly easy meals. Simply put the fish on toast, in a salad, or with roast vegetables, and you have a quick and easy meal that’s surprisingly good for you.
You can pick up a number of different types of fish if you’re after something particular, but we prefer picking up a mixed pack such as the Coastline Collection, which brings together sardine, trout and salmon from Scandinavia and tuna, mackerel and hake from Spain.
The Canned Company works with some of Europe’s best producers, and you can tell: most of the fish we’ve tried comes from Portugal, but the brand now also imports from France, Denmark and Spain.
Preserving the Italian Way
Price: $66.99
‘Preserving the Italian Way’ will teach you (or your dad) the basics of how to preserve your own food: acting as both a collection of generational recipes and a how-to. Author Pietro Demaio sourced the knowledge encapsulated in this book by chatting with Italian nonni, and has delivered on much of what you’d want to know.
But it’s not just about preserving. You’ll also learn how to make cheese, cure meat, dry your own herbs, as well as how to make bread, wine and liqueur in traditional Italian style. If you’ve ever wanted a one-book collection of all the best parts of Italian cooking, this may just be it.
The Morning Machine
Price: From AU$749
If your foodie friend is anything like us, coffee is the main reason they get out of bed every morning. In that case, the Morning Machine is a perfect purchase, delivering built-in recipes to nail the flavours and execution in every cup and allowing users to calibrate their perfect temperature, pressure, and water-to-coffee ratio. Since you’re regularly making coffee while uncaffeinated, that sounds like a godsend.
Everdure Furnace BBQ
Price: From AU$1,199
See this bad boy? It can hit 200 degrees Celsius in just five minutes. That’s super impressive. It’s the BBQ equivalent of a Dodge Challenger hitting 60mph in 1.66 seconds if the result of that was that you had a delicious roast sooner. The Furnace uses a whopping 29.1MJ of power to hit peak temperatures rapidly and help cut down on the time spent waiting around to cook. Oh, also Heston Blumenthal helped make it.
Audo Copenhagen Salt and Pepper Bottle Grinder Set
Price: From AU$152
Probably the most beautiful pair of salt and pepper grinders we’ve ever seen, which makes a lot of sense when you consider that they were created by Norm Architects, a group of Danish designers, and are an innovative take on traditional ‘spice mills’. Plus, since the ceramic grinding mechanism is located at the top part of the mill, it’s unlikely that you’ll end up with rogue grounds peppering your table.
Japan: The Cookbook
Price: From AU$74.95
A collection of over 400 recipes from acclaimed food writer Nancy Singleton Hachisu, Japan: The Cookbook pulls together dishes based on soups, noodles, rices, pickles, one-pots, sweets, and vegetables hailing from the Land of the Rising Sun. If your family is itching to get your favourite foodie to try out some new recipes, this one is an absolute must-have.
Anything’s Pastable: 81 Inventive Pasta Recipes for Saucy People
Price: From AU$65
I think we all can agree that pasta can be one of the more flexible dishes, but it tends to come in shades of marinara, pesto, or carbonara. Here, author Dan Pashman throws those old ideas out the window to deliver a bold reinvention of what else pasta could be: such as kimchi carbonara, linguine with miso clam sauce, and smoked cheddar and chicken manicotti enchiladas. Apparently, enchiladas are pasta now as well? Sure, we’re down.
La Marzocco Linea Mini
Price: AU$8,499
Industrial design meets modern performance on the Linea Mini, which brings barista-tier quality into the comfort of your kitchen. Handcrafted in Italy with professional-grade components (including a steam wand), it offers both manual operation and adjoining app control. Owning one will cost you a pretty penny, but it’s also the last coffee machine you’ll ever need to buy.
NutriBullet Ultra 1000
Price: AU$129.95
NutriBullet’s quietest blender to date, the Ultra 1000 kicks into high gear as soon as the cup meets the power base. Choose between two blending options as you whip up a variety of delicious fruit and/or vegetable smoothies. Speaking of smooth, this is one sleek-looking appliance!
Matty Matheson: A Cookbook
Price: AU$49.99
World-renowned chef and TV host Matty Matheson packed this cookbook full of positive perspectives, personal anecdotes, and unique recipes alike. Come for the pigtail tacos and iconic P&L Burger (to name just two among many examples), and stay for the one-of-a-kind insights and heartwarming stories.
Microwave Cooking for One
Price: AU$40
Plenty of foodies love to splurge when they go out but keep things simple and tasty at home. If you know someone who fits this description, here’s a cookbook just for them. It makes expert use of the modern microwave and features over 300 recipes, including everything from fried scallops to onion hamburgers and more.
Traeger Grills Pro 575
Price: AU$1,599.95
A pioneer of their respective domain, Traeger forges into the future with the mighty Pro 575. Thanks to WiFIRE Technology and a Pro D2 Direct Drive, the black pellet grill cultivates a bold new tier of performance and control. Rounding out its many charms are functional features like all-terrain wheels and an ultra-stable sawhorse chassis. Get one for your favourite griller and they just might weep with joy.
Vitamix A3500i Ascent Series Smart Blender
Price: AU$1,699
Take everything you know about Vitamix blenders and add copious amounts of modern intelligence and you end up with this high-performance model. Thanks to self-detect technology, its motor base can recognise different container sizes and adapt accordingly. Plus, it comes with a bonus Dry Grains Container, perfect for grinding grains, mixing batter, kneading thick dough, and more.
Everything I Love to Cook
Price: AU$65
Legendary chef Neil Perry has collated the ultimate book for any food-lover to cook up a storm at home. Everything I Love to Cook includes more than 230 recipes, from legendary dishes from his flagship restaurants like Rockpool Bar & Grill and modern classics from his long-running ‘Good Weekend’ column, along with the perfect steak sandwich, a comforting bowl of pasta, and many more.
Joseph Joseph Compo Food Waste Caddy
Price: AU$69.95
Everyone has food waste, which is why you simply can’t go wrong with this food waste caddy as a gift. The Compo Food Waste Caddy 4L by Joseph Joseph features a flip-up lid and extra-wide aperture perfect for collecting food scraps. Plus, it looks good and the air-vented lid means it won’t get smelly.
Ooni Karu 12 Multi-Fuel Pizza Oven
Price: AU$549
Ooni might have copied Gozney’s homework in creating their line-up of pizza ovens, but they’re doing so at a more affordable price, and in our experience, that’s without sacrificing any quality. With multiple fuel options for maximum cooking flexibility and speedy heat, reaching up to 500°C in just 15 minutes, you will be dishing out fresh stone-baked pizzas for your friends and family in no time.
Things to Consider for Foodie Gifts
When it comes to food gift ideas, simply wrapping a bow on a new cookbook isn’t quite enough. In fact, if you want to get the special occasion right, there are a few things you need to consider:
- Price: Perhaps the most obvious consideration, the price will inevitably play a factor in your purchasing decision. While you may want to splash out for a significant birthday or gifting event, more often than not, you’ll be aiming around the $50-$100 mark for most gifts. In the foodie world, however, gifts don’t exactly come cheap. To get the most out of your foodie gift idea, don’t be afraid to shop around for the best price.
- Interests: Before you pull the trigger on a cheap gift, you must consider the giftee’s interests. While some ideas might be frugal, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are good.
Alternatives to Foodie Gifts
If you are looking for something a little more specific, we’ve got you covered. Outside of just-food gift ideas, we’ve collated our favourite releases across several different categories. So, no matter what that special someone in your life is keen on, you’ll find it here.
How Man of Many Chose the Best Foodie Gift Ideas
With more than 10 years of experience sipping the best restaurants, bars and recipes, Man of Many’s editors are sticklers for research and certainly know a thing or two about food. This list of gift ideas was curated through the personal experience of experts, alongside extensive and online research from stores and retailers. Each product on this list was checked by the Man of Many staff prior to publication for the official tick of approval. You can review our editorial policy here surrounding how we maintain our independence in our editorial reviews.
Comments
We love hearing from you. or to leave a comment.