Retro kitchen features making a comeback! How to tell if your ‘dated’ appliances are unintentionally cool

DAILYMAIL.COM • 2h ago

By RUTH STAINER, REPORTER Updated: 16:08 13 Oct 2026

It has always been the hub of the home, yet the middle-class British kitchen has changed drastically through the decades.

Innovative devices and smart built-in features that once felt revolutionary have been replaced by modern air fryers, pot taps and smart steam ovens.

But now, the likes of retro soda syphons and salad shooters are slowly making a comeback – with forgotten gadgets from the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties back on the market.

Nostalgic Britons can get their hands on a number of ‘genius’ features from their childhoods, including rotary egg beaters and the historic temperature-controlled butter dish.

And it isn’t just retro gadgets that are experiencing a return – with beige and white modern kitchens also being replaced by 1970s-inspired avocado appliances.

According to a 2026 UK Houzz Kitchen Trends Study, green has become the second most popular choice for kitchen cabinetry at 17 per cent.

Meanwhile, kitchen manufacturer CopperSmith’s research uncovered that searches for avocado green kitchens have surged by more than 4,000 per cent – the single biggest percentage gain of any colour.

Read on to discover the nostalgic kitchen gadgets and features from your childhood that are worth restocking today…

While sparkling water taps may be an innovative feature in a modern kitchen, there was once a time when a soda syphon was the only way you could create a carbonated drink from home.

The heavy glass or brightly coloured glass syphons, when combined with small silver CO2 bulbs, created a hissing sound and quickly carbonated the water, sending fizzy water straight into your glass.

The once-genius invention was certainly a staple of British kitchens and closely associated with a 1970s home bar.

However, soda syphons slowly declined in popularity as disposable canned drinks and pre-carbonated water hit the supermarket shelves in their masses.

Now, for those hoping to add a touch of nostalgia to their kitchens or alcohol stations, soda syphons are making a slow revival in popularity and quickly allow you to create ‘cocktail classics’ such as Fizz or Collins.

Designed to help resolve the ‘too hard vs too soft’ butter dilemma, this dish was crafted to ensure your butter could stay the perfect temperature all day long.

To use the old-fashioned butter dishes, users packed soft butter into the lid before adding a small amount of water to the base to keep the butter cool.

The rim of the lid would also dip lightly into the water to create a natural airtight seal that blocked oxygen and prevented the butter from absorbing any kitchen odours.

While simple and effective, they unfortunately became less popular as time went on due to their exorbitant costs, maintenance and challenges with cleaning.

In particular, their awkward shape and multi-piece design made it challenging to adequately clean all parts of the dish and scrape out old, greasy butter remnants.

However, with dishwashers making them easier to clean, we are slowly witnessing a higher demand for these devices, with sleek modern designs and active temperature-regulating models making a stylish comeback.

Once seen as a status symbol for domestic convenience and the ideal item for a dinner party, hostess trolleys allowed homeowners to keep their food warm and serve in a stress-free way.

Fitted with a heated cabinet, the products saw at-home entertaining take on a whole new life and allowed for the high-end service of restaurants to be delivered straight to your own home.

The dream for every aspiring 1970s housewife, the stylish, functional unit helped keep food warm and be served with optimum presentation.

Yet they sadly lost their appeal due to the invention of the microwave and a gradual shift towards more casual dining. Meanwhile, their bulkier size did them little favours when it came to more modern, stylish home decor.

Now, with dinner parties morphing into a regular ritual for Britons, according to research, we may begin to see the hostess trolley making a comeback across households.

First introduced across British kitchens in the 1980s, the salad shooter is an electronic slicer and shredder designed to make cutting vegetables at speed easier.

Launched by National Presto Industries in the US, it was hailed as a device that would eliminate any need for heavy food processor bowls or multiple chopping boards.

And it wasn’t long before the savvy device became a staple feature across British households for other food offerings – with the super shredders used for cutting the likes of pizzas and hash browns.

While they dominated the British kitchen for decades, salad shooters eventually fell out of popularity as they were perceived as taking up valuable countertop and cupboard space.

Instead, modern cooks switched towards versatile appliances such as full-size or mini-food processors or high-speed blenders.

However, many still praise the early salad shooter for its innovative design, while others appreciate that the original design remains an inexpensive appliance of great purpose.

Designed to cut peeled, hard-boiled eggs into slices or wedges at great speed, egg slicers soared to prominence across Britain during the 1950s to 1980s.

Found in nearly every kitchen drawer across the nation, Britons adored the utensil for making breakfast simpler.

Initially, the German manufacturer Westmark was considered the most renowned egg slicer but by the 1960s many Britons were purchasing Skyline / Prestige’s mid-century ‘kitchenalia’ products.

Offering a range of brightly coloured egg slicers with chrome-plated wire cutters, these egg slicers became famous for also being an easy method for slicing soft cheeses, tomatoes or cucumbers.

Though they became less popular and were slowly replaced by newer versions made of lightweight plastic, many cooking enthusiasts still fondly reminisce over the delightful older models of their childhood.

They were the pinnacle of social dining in the 70s, with fondue sets a firm favourite of the decade before falling out of fashion.

Invented by the Swiss to warm up colder nights, it soon became popular at dinner parties across Britain – and was seen as a radically interactive form of dining that brought groups together.

However, the retro alpine dish has slowly been making a comeback across the nation and is now appearing on more and more restaurant menus.

Combining a growth in social dining trends and shared plates, fondue is seen as a way of bringing Britons together with a touch of nostalgia.

Several supermarkets are even offering pre-made kits and easy-to-use baking cheeses to allow the delightful Fondue nostalgia of the 70s to come alive at home once more.

You could hardly step into a kitchen in the 1970s or 1980s without finding an avocado appliance – with the green, earthy colour seen as a rebellion to the white and sterile styles of previous decades.

From fridges to ovens and microwaves, Britons delighted in basking in a pop of colour in their kitchens.

A seeming world away from the beige and neutral tones favoured today, some of these kitchens even featured carpets, which have all but vanished from modern bathrooms.

Taking to Reddit to reminisce over the nostalgic joy of an avocado kitchen, one commenter said: ‘That’s how it was back then. Those appliances lasted FOREVER.’

Another added: ‘Avocado Green was just one of the colors. Maybe the most popular. I saw a lot of Avocado Green back in the day. My parents’ appliances were Avocado Green.’

Once an absolute must-have countertop gadget, electric can openers first soared in popularity in the 1970s and came in a wide array of bright colours and funky designs.

Offering an unequivocal sense of convenience, these eliminated any need for gripping or twisting a can and quickly became associated with the optimum symbol of modernity.

Indeed, some vintage models went one step further – offering built-in sharpeners and bottle openers.

However, as counter-space demands grew and we saw a gradual shift towards ‘easy-open’ cans, these bulky gadgets quickly grew out of fashion and became hard to justify.

Yet for those hoping to add a touch of colour to their kitchen, and indeed fed up with needing to open cans, there are several retro items on the market that can bring that sense of nostalgia back to your home.

First invented by Willis Johnson in 1884, rotary egg beaters are hand-cranked kitchen tools that were designed to beat eggs with ease.

Widely seen as a revolutionary tool at the time, rotary egg beaters soared to popularity across UK households and worked by transferring whisking into gears.

Requiring no electricity cords and little counter space, households saw them as a key appliance for beating eggs or baking – with brands such as Prestige, Ekco and Dover manufacturing them in their masses.

However, the rise of electric kitchen appliances saw them become less favourable in later years – with electric hand mixers and heavy-duty mixers such as the KitchenAid seen as better alternatives.

Yet many nostalgic Britons fondly reminisce over the rotary egg beater, particularly the fond memories they draw around childhood baking.

Dominating British kitchens from the mid-20th century onwards, these innovative pans were equipped with a small metal or plastic inert that saw an end to the mess of dropping raw eggs straight into vinegar water.

Comprising of small greased cups, the eggs were stored in boiling water and covered with a fitted lid.

Now, they draw fond nostalgic memories of home-cooked breakfasts for many Britons – with the once beloved pans becoming less popular as cooks showed more of a liking for less clutter and simpler modern techniques.

‘Still using my Grandma’s 1940s egg poacher for my morning breakfast,’ commented one nostalgic Reddit user.

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