We’ve been looking for a fairly large kitchen unit as I enjoy cooking and like to have enough space to prepare, cook and clean up without being driven mad by having nowhere to put things down. I’ve been using the Vango Gastro kitchen so here are a few points I hope will be helpful if you’re thinking about buying one.

First of all, this is a big kitchen unit so obviously make sure you have room for it! It has a handy and very large shelved cupboard which I used to store all our crockery, cutlery, and glasses and there was plenty of room to spare. There is a zipped door with Velcro to hold it up if you want to roll it up out of the way. The unit also has a zipped gas “locker” – more about that later, a recessed bowl, aluminium slatted top and a good sturdy windshield to surround your stove.

The kitchen comes with a zipped carry bag which is handy. The only negative being that the pack is fairly big so if you’re struggling to fit all your gear in the car you may need to sacrifice something else to make room or, like me, start looking at trailer brochures!

The unit is straightforward to put up although a sheet of instructions would have been nice just to reassure me before I started as there seemed to be a lot of parts when I first unpacked it. Having said that, it only took me three or four minutes to have it all set up. The large flexible feet help on soft or uneven ground although the legs are not adjustable so I’d still need my trusty bits of wood if the pitch was very uneven or sloping.

So, what are the main plus points about the Gastro kitchen? Well, for a start off, it’s very well made and the materials used seem to be sturdy and durable. The aluminium slats are thicker than those I’ve seen on many other makes. The zips all run smoothly, the stitching throughout the cupboard is well done, and the shelves and frame seem strong and robust. The shelves certainly held everything I put on them without bending. The work top is a great height for chopping, washing up, etc. and the overall appearance is neat and easy to live with colour wise (Charcoal grey fabric and silver grey top and frame).

And the negatives? One glitch I did find was that the hole for the gas hose to pass though into the gas “locker” is too small to fit our regulator through. We use patio gas and the gas hose is left attached to the stove as it’s a bit of a pain to have to refit it each time. A quick trip back to Charles Camping solved the problem – we fitted a quick release connector to the gas hose. Another slight issue with our stove, which might well be different with other stoves (we have an Outwell Gourmet twin burner stove), was that the gas hose connects to the right hand side of the stove but the gap in the windshield for it is in the wrong place. We had to have the hose go away from the gas bottle to get under the windshield and then bend it back towards the gas bottle. The hose then tended to lift the windshield off the unit. I fixed this by using a small clamp (2” G Clamp from a DIY shop) to fix the hose in place behind the windshield. Again problem solved very easily.

All in all, I’m really impressed with the Vango Gastro Kitchen. It’s a great size and height, it’s well made using high quality materials and, especially once the large cupboard is full, it’s a sturdy and stable unit for cooking or washing up. It’s certainly not the cheapest camp kitchen unit out there but you definitely get good value for your money. This unit feels like it will last for years.