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Supplier: Cook In Style  Guide price: £999.99

You might expect me, as a kitchen designer, to recommend a built-in coffee machine - and for some people it does make sense. Don't rule out a free standing machine, though. It can be less obtrusive - sitting on the worktop - and this one, in particular, makes really brilliant coffee.

A free standing machine can also be cheaper. I wouldn't call this one cheap exactly ... but you could pay a lot more for a built-in model with similar functionality.

This is a bean to coffee machine, made by De Longhi in Italy who are famous for good stylish appliances. It's not complicated, like some machines that start with beans, though, because everything - well, almost everything - is automated. You put beans in at one end, push a few buttons, and get coffee to commercial standards at the other end.

The machine is absolutely perfect for espresso coffee - exactly how you like it - time after time. You can adjust the temperature and the strength of the coffee and also the water volume - and the machine will memorise your settings.

If you like milk in your coffee then you can also get cappucino, latte or machiatto coffee at the touch of a button, using a patented milk carafe (which can be detached and kept in the fridge when not in use). It's much easier to use than the manual steam pipes and the use of cold milk ensures that you get a really good, thick, creamy foam on your coffee ... but it also means that it isn't steaming hot (even though the twin boiler system allows the heated milk and coffee to be dispensed one after the other, with no delay). If you like your cappucino hot, then warm the nozzle first and use heated cups or mugs. If you do that, then you can make hot chocolate too.

If you're not worried about having piping hot coffee (or you don't add milk) then the top of the machine can be used to warm cups and mugs.

Other features include:

• an automatic wash cycle to clean milk out of the pipes, before the milk carafe is returned to the fridge
• you can use ground coffee instead of coffee beans
• it tells you when it needs a descale - which takes just 30 minutes with a descaling product. This will add to the cost in very hard water areas, where it needs to be used frequently, but it will prevent blocking and machine failure, which can happen with other makes and models
• it also tells you when the grounds container needs emptying and when the water tank needs filling

This coffee machine is great for beginners and those who don't want to mess about fiddling with pipes ... but it also has programmable functions to keep coffee connoisseurs happy.