10 best 2-slice toasters for a golden slice every time
Whether you’re looking to spend less than a tenner or over £100, we have the perfect two-slice toaster for your kitchen
A good toaster is the perfect culinary shortcut, providing a fast and easy way to cook yourself something warm and hearty.
When shopping for a toaster, the most important factor to consider is whether the toaster you are considering is suitable for making toast to your liking.
We’re confident that all the toasters featured here will cater for most users’ preferences, courtesy of their variable power settings which enable them to toast from very lightly to very well done.
Another important consideration is the shape and size of a toaster’s toast slots. Some toasters have relatively small slots, best suited to slices of bread from on evenly-sliced small or medium loaf. Others have wider and more accommodating slots, better suited to hand-sliced bread.
Toasters tend to be simple appliances, so there aren’t many in-depth specifications or features to look out for as you shop. The most useful toaster features, such as variable power settings and reheat and defrost modes, are included in almost all the models you can buy.
To help you pick the right toaster for your home, we tested ten of the highest-rated 2-slice models available to buy online. We used each toaster to make toast using a variety of heat settings, then taste-tested the results.
You can trust our independent reviews. We may earn commission from some of the retailers, but we never allow this to influence selections, which are formed from real-world testing and expert advice. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.
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VonHaus 2-Slice champagne toaster
Champagne and toasting tend to make a good combo, so we had high hopes when we received our review unit of VonHaus’s fizz-coloured toaster. With a dusky green colour and smart, industrial-inspired design, this toaster wouldn’t look out of place in a Fritz Lang film. It gets top marks for style, and our testing showed that VonHaus’s toaster toasts bread beautifully, too. Our toast came out well browned and evenly cooked, and at 32mm across, the slots are nice and wide – perfect for toasting things like thickly-cut bread and crumpets. Attentive toast-chefs will be pleased to note the high-lift function on the lever, which makes it easier to check on your toast-in-progress without stopping the toasting timer.
Buy now £21.99, VonHaus
Swan 2-Slice retro toaster ST19010CN
Swan’s 2-Slice Retro Toaster is a real looker – and with solid toasting performance plus defrost and reheat settings, it’s perfectly functional too. Turning the setting dial produces a wide range of browning levels, from what we might call very lightly done to borderline incinerated. We reckon most users will find a setting they like between numbers 2 and 5 on the dial. One minor downside to this toaster is that its mechanism sometimes struggles to grip hand-sliced bread when you push the lever down – but that’s nothing a careful prod of a forefinger can’t solve. We’ve chosen to highlight the cream-coloured version of this toaster here, but don’t be put off if you’d prefer a bolder look: there are other variants including red and black via the link.
Buy now £34.99, Swan
Salter opulence 2-Slice toaster ,indigo
This premium toaster from Salter ticks all the boxes. First and foremost, it makes great toast, producing slices that are thoroughly toasted through. Settings 4 and up on the 6-step setting dial produce a nice crunch. Then there’s the quality of manufacture. This looks, feels and works like a very well made appliance indeed, with details such as the matte finish on the sides adding an air of luxury to match the toaster’s name. With further plus points including reheat and defrost modes, an easy-to-operate crumb tray and under-appliance cable storage, the Salter Opulence is a perfect 2-slice toaster.
Buy now £36.99, Amazon
Russell Hobbs 23331 colours plus 2 slice toaster
Offering good performance at a great price, the Russell Hobbs Colours Plus is one of our favourite 2-slice toasters you can buy for under £30. One of the best things about this toaster is its capacity to thoroughly toast large pieces of bread, thanks to its long, deep slots. In our testing, it proved itself able to do so very quickly and thoroughly, especially when a relatively high setting was used. The lever incorporates a ‘lift and look’ feature, so you can peek the toast over the edge of the toaster slots and check on its progress during toasting.
Buy now £25.00, Amazon
Tower Cavaletto 2-Slice Toaster
This is a great little toaster from British brand Tower. All the staple features are well executed, including a removable crumb tray. defrost and reheat modes, and a cancel button to stop the toaster during a toasting cycle.Fancier features can be found in the toaster’s mechanism, which has a jam-proof function to prevent bread from getting stuck, and a centring function to keep toast held evenly between the heating elements on either side.Another strong point is the Cavaletto’s chic aesthetic. It looks lovely in this black and rose gold colourway.
Buy now £34.49, Amazon
Morphy Richards equip stainless steel 2-Slice toaster
The Morphy Richards Equip is an outstanding example of affordable utility in a toaster. It’s great at toasting all sorts of bread, with wide, deep slots to accommodate a wide range of slice thicknesses and shapes. We found that setting 4 on the variable browning dial produced the best results in most cases. Another benefit to this toaster is that its smooth surfaces are particularly easy to wipe clean. On less of a positive note, the Equip is ever-so-slightly on the slow side – but the tasty results are worth the modest wait.
Buy now £24.50, Amazon
SMEG 50’s retro TSF01BLUK 2-Slice toaster
Serve the bread-based component of your beans on toast from a bonafide status symbol, in the form of the Smeg 50’s Retro 2-Slice toaster. With its stubby metallic legs, spherical lever and curvaceous design, this is one of the most attractive toasters we’ve come across – a real gem to adorn your kitchen counter.In terms of toasting performance, this toaster is up there with some of the best we’ve tested, with excellent defrost and reheat features, an automatic bread-centring mechanism, and even a setting for toasting bagels.The only drawback: it costs a fair amount more than any toaster really should.
Buy now £129.99, Currys
Dualit Architect 2-Slice Toaster
For buyers who are willing to push the boat out, the Dualit Architect 2-Slice Toaster delivers exceptional build quality and very good toasting performance. Dualit has a knack for making especially beautiful small kitchen appliances, and the Architect shows the brand at its best. The brushed stainless steel body of the toaster is gloriously shiny, and the blue accents on the controls are a lovely touch. Not only is this toaster sleek; it’s also smart. The Architect comes equipped with Dualit’s ‘Perfect Toast Technology’, which adjusts the toasting cycle based on the temperature of the toaster and its surroundings.
Buy now £76.95, Amazon
Cookworks 2-Slice toaster, black
Toasters don’t need to be fancy or expensive; they just need to make a tasty slice of toast. Take the Cookworks 2-Slice Toaster, for instance. Despite costing about the same amount as a couple of fancy sourdough loaves, this simple toaster has many of the same core capabilities as some of the more expensive options on the market. Its features include variable power settings, reheat and defrost modes, and a removable crumb tray to help keep the toaster clean. Cheap, cheerful and perfectly capable of making well-cooked toast, this would be a great choice for buyers working to a budget.
Buy now £9.99, Argos
IKOHS create toast flat classic
Maybe we’ve been doing this toasting thing all wrong. The ingenious IKOHS Create Toast Flat Classic points to an entirely different way of making toast: horizontally, on a grill rack over a pair of powerful heating elements. Because this toaster cooks toast out in the open, you can see exactly how well-done the bread is at any time. We found that this made it easy to toast the bread just to our liking. There are undoubtedly a few drawbacks to this style of toasting – for instance, you’ll need to turn the bread after a certain amount of time to toast both sides. Nonetheless, patient cooks will be rewarded for making that extra effort with an easier way to make perfect toast.
Buy now £43.95, IKOHS
The verdict: Two slice toasters
Combining an eye-catching industrial aesthetic with excellent toasting performance, the VonHaus Champagne 2-Slice Toaster is our IndyBest Best Buy. It offers exceptional quality at a fair price.
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