Höfats

Origins and background

Höfats is a German product-design company based in Kempten, in the Allgäu region, founded in 2015 by engineers who also trained in design. From the start it has focused on fire objects for outdoor and indoor use —grills, table fires, braziers and fire baskets—, all made in Germany.

Its work has earned serious industrial-design honours, including the Red Dot and the iF Design Award, which is unusual in the barbecue world and places the brand closer to a design studio than to a conventional grill maker.

What sets it apart

Höfats treats fire as a design object without sacrificing function. Within its range, the piece that matters here is the Cone chimney starter, a charcoal lighter with a distinctive conical shape that uses airflow to get charcoal glowing cleanly, with no lighter fluid or firelighter cubes.

Our assessment

We include the Cone in the mikamado catalogue because a good chimney starter is one of the most useful accessories any kamado owner can have. Based on its specs, the user community and our own experience firing up the Big Green Egg Large, the routine is always the same: fill the starter, light it from below and tip the live coals onto the kamado's charcoal. The Cone does this with more design care than a standard metal chimney.

An honest caveat: part of what you pay for is the design, and in a well-sealed kamado the ceramic body itself already holds and spreads heat beautifully, so the starter mainly earns its keep at lighting time. If you want the cheapest route, plainer chimneys exist; if you want an object that looks good on the terrace, this is where Höfats shines —a logical pick for anyone who enjoys the charcoal ritual and wants a starter that is both durable and handsome.