Hario's stovetop gooseneck is the plain, all-steel pour-over kettle that Food & Wine and The Spruce Eats both picked as their best stovetop option. Testers praise how fast it boils and how well it pours. They also flag the same weak spots: no thermometer, no whistle, hot handles, and boil-overs if you fill it past about 800 ml.
Full review
What Reviewers Concluded
The Hario V60 Buono stovetop kettle shows up again and again in kitchen-testing roundups, and the reviews mostly agree. Food & Wine names it the best stovetop gooseneck kettle in its gooseneck guide and the best gooseneck stovetop tea kettle in its broader tea-kettle guide. The Spruce Eats lists it as best stovetop in its tea-kettle roundup. Serious Eats ran it in two separate tests, its gooseneck roundup and its stovetop-kettle roundup. In both it appears under other models tested, not among the winners. Reviewers praise the same things: the pour is precise, the design is simple, and nothing on it can break. They also complain about the same things. It has no thermometer, no whistle and no fill line. The handles get hot. And the real capacity is well under the 1.2 liters printed on the box. Three of those roundups (Food & Wine's two guides and The Spruce Eats) named it their top stovetop pick. Each still listed real caveats about heat, capacity and temperature control.
Pouring Control and Spout
Pour quality is the main reason anyone buys a gooseneck, and the Buono does well here. The Spruce Eats describes an S-shaped gooseneck spout that "dispenses a smooth and even flow of water" and a heat-resistant handle "set at an exaggerated angle for comfort and control." It sums up the kettle with: "Pour-overs are all about precision, and the V60 Buono offers that in spades." Food & Wine's gooseneck testers found much the same. They said the traditional spout "offers a perfect controlled flow," and that the ridged handle was easy to grip and angled so that steady pouring felt effortless. Food & Wine also brewed coffee with each kettle in its gooseneck round. It reports that the pour-over made with the Buono "tasted more flavorful and robust thanks to more thoroughly extracted coffee." Its tea-kettle guide likewise recommends the kettle for its "precise pouring." No tester reported dribbling from the spout or flow problems.
Boil Speed: Conflicting Results
On heating speed, the published tests disagree. Food & Wine has evaluated 11 gooseneck models over several testing rounds, filling each kettle to its maximum and timing how long it took to boil over high heat. In its most recent round, it found that the V60 Buono "reached a rolling boil the fastest of any model." Serious Eats' stovetop-kettle review, in which the author says he tested 14 stovetop kettles, found that the Buono came to a boil about as fast as the Fellow Stagg stovetop model. Serious Eats' gooseneck roundup, which compared 17 electric and stovetop goosenecks, reached the opposite conclusion. It said the Buono "took forever to reach a boil," but blamed that on all non-electric kettles rather than on this one. The likely explanation is that the tests measured different things. A stovetop kettle's speed depends on the burner under it, and Serious Eats was comparing it against electric kettles. Next to other stovetop kettles, the Buono looks quick. Next to a 1,000-plus-watt electric base, a stovetop kettle generally falls behind.
Temperature Control and Heat Retention
The Buono is a plain steel vessel. It has no thermometer on the lid, no temperature presets and no keep-warm function. Serious Eats' stovetop reviewer said the missing thermometer "made it hard to home in on the ideal water temperature for pour-over." That matters because pour-over recipes usually ask for water a few degrees below boiling. Food & Wine says the same, listing the lack of precise temperature control, a keep-warm function and steady temperature as the main drawbacks of a stovetop design. Food & Wine measured how quickly the kettle loses heat. Its uninsulated walls let water drop from boiling to 199°F after 10 minutes and to 171°F after 30 minutes. In practice you should brew soon after the boil, or clip on a separate thermometer and pour when the water reaches your target temperature.
Capacity and Everyday Use
Hario calls this the 1.2-liter Buono, but its own product listing gives a practical capacity of 800 milliliters, and testers confirmed the gap. Food & Wine warns that "if you fill this kettle more than about two-thirds of the way, boiling water will overflow out of the spout." The Spruce Eats and Food & Wine's tea-kettle team both point to the lack of a visible fill line, which makes overfilling easy. Simplicity is the other everyday advantage. Food & Wine liked that you fill it, set it on the heat and wait, with "no buttons or outlets to fuss with," and that without a bulky base it is much easier to store than an electric gooseneck. Food & Wine's tea-kettle testers also found that the large lid opening made hand-washing very easy. Food & Wine lists it as not dishwasher-safe. Hario specifies a stainless steel body and lid with a phenol resin handle and knob, and says the kettle is made in Japan.
Cooktop Compatibility
Food & Wine confirms that the stainless steel 1.2-liter Buono works on any cooktop, including induction. The kettle has no whistle, which Food & Wine's tea-kettle guide points out, so on any burner you have to watch for the boil yourself. Gas stoves need extra care. The Spruce Eats advises keeping the flame smaller than the kettle's base so it doesn't creep up the sides and "scar the finish or melt the handle." Food & Wine gives the same warning: center the kettle on the burner and turn the handle away from the heat, because the handle can melt if it meets a direct flame.
Where It Falls Short
Heat is the most consistent complaint. Food & Wine's tea-kettle testers found that "the Buono's main and lid handles can reach very high temperatures," and noted that Hario recommends low or medium heat to limit this. They also found that the steam vent on the lid can rotate toward the handle, which put their hands at risk of steam burns. The Spruce Eats lists "Kettle and lid get very hot" among its cons. The other shortcomings come from the design. It boils over if filled past about two-thirds, it has no fill line or whistle, and it has no temperature readout, which Serious Eats blamed for making exact pour-over temperatures hard to hit. Food & Wine's gooseneck guide adds that it holds heat worse than the electric kettles on its list. If you want to set a temperature and walk away, the published testing suggests an electric gooseneck will suit you better.
Who It's Best For
Based on these reviews, the Buono suits people who already make pour-over coffee or carefully brewed tea, care most about pour control, and are happy to heat water on the stove. It also fits small kitchens where an electric base would take up counter space, and induction cooktops, since Food & Wine confirms the 1.2-liter model works on them. Buyers who brew one or two cups at a time won't mind the 800 ml working capacity. It is a poor fit if you want a whistle to tell you the water is ready, want to fill a large teapot in one go, or want to hit an exact brewing temperature without extra tools. For those needs, testers' findings point toward a whistling stovetop kettle or a variable-temperature electric gooseneck. If you do buy the Buono, a cheap clip-on or instant-read thermometer fixes its biggest weakness. Keeping the flame inside the base and the fill under two-thirds avoids most of the problems reviewers ran into.
Strengths
- +Food & Wine's testers found it reached a rolling boil the fastest of any kettle in their most recent gooseneck round
- +Slim S-shaped gooseneck spout gives a smooth, controllable pour that The Spruce Eats and Food & Wine both singled out
- +Angled, ridged handle that Food & Wine said made steady pouring effortless
- +Works on gas, electric and induction cooktops (1.2 L size), with no base or cord to store
- +Wide lid opening that Food & Wine found made hand-cleaning easy
Watch-outs
- −No thermometer, whistle or fill line; Serious Eats said the missing thermometer made it hard to hit pour-over temperatures
- −Usable capacity is about 800 ml; filled past roughly two-thirds, boiling water comes out of the spout
- −Body, lid and handles get very hot, and the resin handle can melt if a gas flame wraps around the base
How it compares
The cheaper of the two goosenecks and, unlike the Fellow Stagg, it works on induction. It has no thermometer, though, and its practical fill is about 800 ml. Anyone mainly boiling water for mugs of tea will be better served by the Le Creuset or Chantal Anniversary whistlers.
Rating sources
“If you master its use, however, the unit will reward you with precision and control while pouring.”
“Still, we recommend this model for its efficient size, sleek and simple design, and precise pouring.”
“But the lack of a thermometer on this kettle made it hard to home in on the ideal water temperature for pour-over.”
Our 4.0 score is the average of the 2 scored reviews above; 1 more reviewed it without printing a score and is not in the average. Ratings marked * were derived from the reviewer’s written analysis or video transcript — the publisher didn’t print an explicit numeric score, so we inferred one from their own words. Click through to verify. More about methodology.
