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You should see the crusty horrors I put in my dishwasher. Egg yolk–cemented plates, chia seed–speckled glasses. Dregs of oatmeal pave the valley of cereal bowls like fresh asphalt. It’s nasty in there. But then I run it before bed and wake up to plates, bowls, and wine glasses so immaculate you’d think I just unboxed them from Crate & Barrel. I once left for a long weekend, forgot to run the dishwasher, and the four-day entombed dishes still came out pristine.
When I moved into a house with a kitchen suspended in 1993, the first appliance I dreamed about replacing was the dishwasher. I eat every meal at home. It’s so many dishes. My environmental guilt was racking up. Doing dishes by hand with the faucet running was probably costing me 22 gallons of water per wash. A modern dishwasher uses 3 to 6 gallons. Because I’m in my mid-30s and this is the kind of dream that whisks me off to sleep, well, I wanted the best of the best. A Miele dishwasher.
I bought a gleaming stainless-steel Miele G7156 model for $1,900, and I waited around six months for delivery from my beloved local Michigan store, Big George’s. It’s the first working dishwasher I’ve ever had in my life, and I wanted it to also be the last. At Big George’s, sales associate Paul McGuckin walked me around the store and helped me compare models in the most straightforward, honest way. He said Miele was top-tier in the industry, it’s been around longer than most other dishwasher brands, and its dishwasher’s average lifespan is 10–20 years. A nice Bosch, which I was debating, has an average of 8–10 years.
Unlike most other kitchen appliances, the price difference between premium and mid-tier dishwashers is a matter of about 500 bucks. A gorgeous Aga range can cost $24,000 (whew), and $8,000 can buy a swank Thermador fridge, freezer not included. But the best dishwashers? A really good KitchenAid dishwasher can be had for around $1,450, the Bosch contender is $1,349, and an entry-level it’ll-do GE is around $1,000. The beauty and longevity of the Miele, to me, was a no-brainer.
Buying the dishwasher in person was crucial so I could see the inside of the machine and gaze lovingly at the hidden control panel of buttons. Paul told me once that a lady brought in a whole tub of dishes to test in a dishwasher, “and three hours later, she bought it.” At Big George’s (I like to think it’s named after an appliance-loving mobster), I had a good old-fashioned specialty experience you don’t get at certain other depots of the home. And because Big George’s stocks its own product in its own warehouses, I knew exactly when it would arrive at my door. So not only was I buying a brand that I could trust, but I was buying from a store—and people—I could trust. This isn’t sponsored, just a reminder that local businesses are the best.
Review Score:
9.8/10
Pros:
- Magical washing and drying capabilities
- Minimal water usage
- Will last decades, with minimal service
- Quiet as a church mouse (43 decibels, to be precise)
- Makes friends jealous
- Racks can be rearranged a ton of different ways
- 1-hour express mode is a lifesaver when you’re doing marathon cooking
- Sleek design
Cons:
- Expensive
- A (possibly) longer wait time than other brands because they don’t make as many models
- A (possibly) longer wait time for repairs, depending on where you live
- The tines on the lower rack are close together, so if you have thick plates they might not fit (mine fit, FWIW)
- Plastic items don’t dry as well as glass, porcelain, or stainless steel
- Some people have a hard time saying “Miele”
The basics:
It’s pronounced “Mee-la,” which rhymes with “Sheila.” Now you know.
Miele is a German brand of luxury appliances with a long-standing reputation for quality, sleek design, and precision-obsessed German engineering. People in the extremely niche world of appliances drool over Miele.
According to my appliance king Paul at Big George’s, Miele was the first producer of a dishwasher in Europe. It’s been in this game for nearly a century. “They forge their own parts,” he told me. “They’re literally forging their own iron—it’s kind of next-level. I don’t know of any other company that does that.”
The Miele G7000 series dishwashers are among the newest, and within that category there are a few different models with slight differences. I opted for the G7156, which is more affordable than the G7566 with its “PowerDisk”—something to do with a smart detergent dispenser, but I just want to use Great Value pods and get on with my life. I’ve had my dishwasher for around a year, and it’s improved my life every single day. The first thing I do in the morning is unload it in amazement. It’s embarrassing how impressed I am every time a smoothie glass comes out clean.
What does the Miele dishwasher do well?
Wash dishes. I don’t want my dishwasher to need specialty soap, require a software update, or text me a daily affirmation. I want my dishes to come out clean, bone-dry, and without streaks. It seems like three simple things to ask of a dishwasher, but we all know that somewhere along the timeline of appliance history, dishwashers got lazy. If you’ve ever used a dishwasher as a drying rack, you know.
Miele dishwashers are also incredibly water efficient. The water usage depends on what cycle you use, but on average it uses 3.2 gallons of water per cycle, while half loads might use just 1.5 gallons. The machine can sense when the dishwasher is only filled halfway, and it’ll adjust to use less water, so even if I’ve only had one meal at home that day, I’ll run it every night regardless. (And yes, it’s Energy Star–certified but at this point, what isn’t?).
Another nerdy thing they do well is heat water. Again, sounds obvious. But Paul told me that Miele dishwashers have a sensor that makes sure the hot water is at a sanitizing temperature before starting the wash cycle—one of the few brands to do so.
And it’s quiet. So quiet that I accidentally opened in mid-wash because I couldn’t tell it was even running. Oops! Carry on, carry on.
Please, tell me more about your dishwasher
It’s extremely spacious. The design of the racks, with a third rack up top for silverware, means I can fit in stacks of plates, shallow bowls, cereal bowls, and wine glasses without having to worry about that bulky box of forks getting in the way. The racks can also shift—this video shows ya—so if you have something tall in the bottom (like a juice pitcher), you can adjust the middle rack to make room for it. On the middle rack, there’s a long plastic piece that flips down to hold wine glass stems in place, also creating an extra rack where I put short glassware or Pyrex prep bowls. There’s a slot in the silverware tray that slides over to make room below. I’ve crammed every inch of this dishwasher, and as long as the dishes are arranged at angles to not block the water sprayers, everything but maybe three spoons in the cutlery tray will come out clean. It never ceases to amaze me.
There are crud sensors. The beauty of modern appliances is that they’ve somehow figured out a way to sense how dirty your dishes are and adjust the wash cycle accordingly. That’s why, when you come over for dinner, I’ll freak out if you rinse your plate before putting it in the dishwasher. A rinsed plate confuses the dishwasher. “Why am I washing a clean dish?” it will ask, and then it won’t try as hard. I put in a stainless-steel saucepan that I burnt caramel in…and it came out clean. I felt like I’d won the Olympics. Let the sensors do their job! (If you’re wondering if my dishwasher filter is full of scrambled egg and whatnot, surprisingly, after a year, it’s not. That stuff must get broken down enough to disappear into the drain. You should still give your dishwasher filter a scrub every once in a while though.)
It can handle the most delicate of glassware. I recently bought beautiful, super lightweight wine glasses because I wanted to feel like I was drinking wine at a fancy restaurant at home. The instructions for the glasses said that most people break them when hand-washing (not, as I suspected, while drinking wine and playing Settlers of Catan) so I put them in the upper rack in the dishwasher. In the morning, they come out of the wash like new. If only I could say the same for myself.
There are other features I don’t use. There are dry cycles to sanitize baby stuff, pots and pans cycles, timers, and other high-tech things I’ve mostly ignored. I’m sure they’re cool, but I just need my plates cleaned.
How to make the most of your pretty new dishwasher
- Fill it correctly, with dishes at an angle
- Scrape food off but do. Not. Rinse.
- Use a rinse-aid like Jet-Dry. It makes a small but mighty difference
Why didn’t I get a Bosch?
From what I’ve heard and the reviews I’ve read, Bosch dishwashers are amazing—and they have huge marketing efforts to reinforce that. They’re in such high demand right now that they’re often on back order. When it comes down to functionality, both Bosch and Miele are going to deliver super clean, dry dishes. They use a similar amount of water and energy. Even though it was $500 more expensive, I went with Miele for its higher-end reputation, longer lifespan, and beautiful design. There’s a glow around the brand like any designer product—it’s a certified splurge. I wanted something luxurious, making me feel like I’m in an Arch Digest home tour and not in a kitchen with gray vinyl flooring that’s permanently sticky. Let me have this luxury.
Is the Miele dishwasher worth it?
Hell yes. If you can spare the cash, your dishwashing life will be better with a Miele. BA test kitchen director Chris Morocco has one, too, and he seconds that statement. That said, I don’t think any worldly possession is worth getting into debt over. For significantly less, you can get a great, highly Consumer Reports–rated Bosch or KitchenAid dishwasher and it might last just as long, you never know.