How do I grill in my condo?

October 30, 2015 3:40 PM

I know indoor grills are a thing, but I have no idea what to look for, so as usual I need your help.

Mrs. pdb and I are selling our house and moving to a condo, because houses are way more work than we want. We found a great condo that we love, and we close on it in mid-December; it has everything we want except outdoor space. There isn't even a building common area. The only thing I will miss from our house is the gas grill on our deck; I love grilling pretty much year round. Nothing fancy; burgers, steaks, chicken, the occasional skewer.

I started doing some research on indoor grills, but quickly realized I have no idea what I should be looking for; all I know is that I don't want a George Foreman grill or other panini-press sort of thing, because I've had one of those and it wasn't at all what I would call a "grill".

So, that's my question: what do I look for in an indoor grill in order to more or less replicate the experience and flavor of using the Weber I have on my deck right now (knowing full well that a gas grill indoors is not a thing)?

Price is...sorta no object? I guess? I'd rather not spend more than $200 but if something exceptional exists that's more, I could be convinced.

posted by pdb to Home & Garden (6 answers total)

Will you be cooking on a gas stove? If so, I'd recommend one of these. I bought one years ago at a home show, without high expectations. But it's really good. I use it throughout the winter to grill things. I find it needs a little squirt of non-stick spray and then nothing sticks and it gets those lovely grill marks.
posted by essexjan at 3:48 PM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

This is a surprisingly informative about.com article on the topic. As the article says, a yakitori grill is probably going to be the most grill-y of the bunch, though this spendy one is probably not awful either.

I have waffled many times on an indoor grill, and finally gave up and bought a good cast iron grill pan (see America's Test Kitchen for reviews and recommendations, because you want one with a good height on the grill parts) and that's fine but it's not the same.
posted by Lyn Never at 3:50 PM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: essexjan: yep, on a gas stove. That's a cool idea, I'll have to check it out.

Lyn: thanks for the link, there's good stuff in there!
posted by pdb at 6:46 PM on October 30, 2015

Play with your broiler! Most stove broilers are set a little too far away from the top shelf for optimal browning, but something as simple as a pizza stone should fix the height problem.
posted by yarntheory at 8:28 PM on October 30, 2015

"Price is no object" is a bold statement. If that were really true, I'd say rip out the stove, put in a 36" gas range with grill + 4 burners, install a 1000 cfm exhaust hood, and go to town! We're talking six grand, give or take, not to mention the new cabinets and counters because the current range is 30".

Failing that, you absolutely need a way to get the smoke out of the kitchen, so make sure you have a real exhaust fan, not one that just recirculates air through a filter. Then you can grill on top of the stove.
posted by mr vino at 6:17 AM on October 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: mr vino: I did qualify that rather heavily:

Price is...sorta no object? I guess? I'd rather not spend more than $200
posted by pdb at 7:19 AM on October 31, 2015