Kitchen Design Classics Still in Production

Paris model, manual pepper mill Peugeot has been making pepper mills since 1874, and the reason the name still means something on a pepper mill is the part you never see. The steel mechanism does the work, and Peugeot backs every one of its steel mechanisms with a lifetime warranty, which is a rare promise for a kitchen tool. The Paris shape itself is plain turned wood with a waisted middle, easy to grip with a greasy hand and steady on a crowded countertop. The mills are still assembled at Peugeot's factory in Quingey in eastern France. Check the body warranty separately: the lifetime cover applies to the mechanism, not the wood.

No. 08 folding knife Joseph Opinel invented his folding knife in 1890, and the No. 08 is the size most people picture when they hear the name. It is three parts doing the job of many: a blade, a wooden handle and a metal collar. That collar, the Virobloc added by Marcel Opinel in 1955, twists to lock the blade open, and later versions lock it closed too. For the kitchen the No. 08 is a picnic and cheese-board knife rather than a chef's knife, and the choice between carbon and stainless steel matters: carbon takes a keener edge but stains and rusts if left wet. The Victoria and Albert Museum recognized Opinel in 1985.

Kilner preserving jar The Kilner name goes back to a Yorkshire glassworks founded in 1842, and its first jar with a patented vacuum seal arrived in 1900. The vacuum seal is the whole design: heat drives the air out, and as the jar cools the lid is pulled down onto the glass by the vacuum inside rather than by the band alone. The jar pictured, from the 1920s, shows the glass lid and screw band. The original company went bankrupt in 1937; the Rayware Group bought the jar's patent, design and trademark in 2000 and still sells the range. Today's Kilner shelf runs well beyond preserving, from clip-top jars to drinks dispensers, so check that a jar is sold for home preserving before you trust it with jam.

The Swedish physicist and Nobel laureate Gustaf Dalén invented the AGA in 1922, and it has been made ever since. It is a heat-storage cooker: a heavy cast-iron body holds heat, and food goes into ovens set at different temperatures rather than under a dial, so you cook by choosing the right oven and hotplate instead of adjusting a flame. That suits slow roasts, stews and a kettle always near the boil, and it warms the room. Electric and lower-energy models are now offered alongside the traditional shape. It is the biggest commitment on this list, in price, weight and running cost, and it rewards a household that cooks every day rather than once a week.

Signature round casserole (cocotte) Le Creuset began in 1925 in Fresnoy-le-Grand in northern France with an enameled cast-iron casserole in an orange it calls Volcanic, and the cast iron is still made there. Enamel is what made the cocotte more than a cast-iron pot: it needs no seasoning, does not react with wine or tomatoes, and goes from stovetop to oven to table. The trade-off is weight, which is considerable in the larger sizes, and enamel can chip if the pot is dropped or heated empty. The current pots carry a lifetime warranty on the cookware collection, and the shape has changed little enough that a decades-old one still looks at home beside a new one.

Moka Express stovetop coffee maker Alfonso Bialetti designed the Moka Express in 1933, and its eight-sided aluminum body is still the shape most people picture when they think of stovetop coffee. The octagon is not only Art Deco styling: the flat facets give a firm grip when you unscrew a hot pot. Water in the base is forced up through the coffee basket into the top chamber, and the gurgle tells you it is done. What you get is strong, concentrated coffee rather than true espresso. The aluminum pot needs an adapter plate to work on an induction cooktop and should be rinsed by hand rather than put in the dishwasher. Bialetti credits Alfonso, but some accounts name other inventors, so treat the origin story as contested.

Tilt-head stand mixer, descended from the 1937 Model K The industrial designer Egmont Arens was brought in to create new models of the KitchenAid mixer, and the Model K he worked on, launched in August 1937, set the rounded outline today's tilt-head mixers still follow. The clever part is the hub on the front of the head. Attachments that run from it fit across generations, so a pasta roller or meat grinder bought decades ago will still drive from a new mixer. That turns one appliance into a system you can add to slowly. The compatibility covers hub attachments only, so older bowls and beaters may not suit a newer machine.

The chemist Peter Schlumbohm invented the Chemex in 1941, and it still looks like what it is: a piece of laboratory glass made for the kitchen. One hourglass vessel does the work of funnel and pitcher, and the wooden collar with its rawhide tie is the handle, so there is no glued-on part to crack. The Museum of Modern Art showed it among the best-designed products in 1943. In the cup it gives a clean, bright pour-over, helped by bonded filters based on laboratory paper. That is also its catch: it needs its own filters, and the narrow neck makes the glass awkward to scrub.

Classic toaster Max Gort-Barten's first successful product was a flip-sided toaster patented in 1946, and the Dualit Classic still looks like the post-war catering kit it grew from: a squared, polished metal box with nothing decorative about it. That plainness is the design. The Classic is aimed at people who want a toaster to last and be serviced rather than thrown away, and it costs several times as much as an ordinary model, so the price only makes sense if you plan to keep it for many years. It also takes a fair amount of counter space. The company, which has been in Crawley, West Sussex, since 2003, has since added versions with a bagel setting.

The Margrethe bowl came out of Sigvard Bernadotte and Acton Bjørn's design studio in Copenhagen, where the young Jacob Jensen is often credited with drawing it. Rosti launched it at Christmas 1954, named after Bernadotte's niece, Princess Margrethe of Denmark. It is the most practical object here for the money. The spout pours batter cleanly, the handle opposite it gives you something to hold while you whisk, and the non-slip ring on the base keeps it from skating across the countertop. It comes in a run of sizes with matching lids. The bowls were melamine for decades; current ones are made in a newer plastic Rosti calls Durostima, still light and hard to break, and now suitable for the microwave and freezer.

Picardie tumbler The Picardie left Duralex's workshops in 1954, and its nine facets, bevelled profile and bold lines quickly made it a staple of everyday tableware. The facets are what make it good to use rather than just good to look at: they give a wet hand something to grip. It is tempered glass, heated, shaped and then cooled fast with cold air, which makes it far tougher than ordinary glass, though tempered glass that does break goes into small pieces all at once. Every Duralex glass is still made in France, in the same factory at La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin as in 1946. It is cheap enough to buy by the dozen and works as well for wine as for water.

Michael Graves designed the 9093 for Alessi in 1985, and the little bird on the spout that sings when the water boils turned a stovetop kettle into one of the company's great commercial successes. Underneath the joke is a sensible shape: the wide conical base of 18/10 stainless steel sits over a large area of the burner, and the high handle keeps your hand away from the steam. It is the most playful object on this list and also the one where styling most clearly leads, so judge it as much on whether you want to look at it every day as on how fast it boils. Current versions have a magnetic steel base, so they work on induction as well as gas and electric stovetops.

Good Grips swivel peeler The youngest classic here, and the cheapest. Sam Farber saw his wife Betsey struggling with a peeler because of her arthritis and asked Smart Design to develop easier utensils; the Good Grips range followed in 1990, and the peeler is in the Museum of Modern Art's collection. The fat, soft black handle is the design: it fills the hand, so a weak or wet grip still controls the blade. It is a tool made for the hardest-to-serve user that turns out better for everyone, which is the best argument this list has that a design classic is about use rather than looks. The blade swivels to follow the curve of a potato, and it is the easiest recommendation here.