Tefal OptiGrill Elite GC750

This will appeal to many but not without drawbacks – Product Review: Tefal OptiGrill Elite (Model GC750) Usual Ambassadorial Disclaimer: This product was sent to me free of charge for me to review. While I do get to keep the Tefal Optigrill after my review, I will tell you both the good, and the bad as I would any other review. So please grab yourself a beverage, perhaps a snack, as I have a… Read more

tendency to go into quite a bit of detail. If you don’t like that, then I suggest you find a more succinct review.

I would have done more in this review. However, our renovations ran later than planned and we didn’t always have power. So I profoundly apologise for that. We also don’t grill much in the way of vegetables, as we prefer baking, steaming, boiling, or just eating them raw when appropriate. So if you’re a vegetarian, this review will have less insight for you.

Introducing the OptiGrill….

Let’s start by the ever important factors of price and availability.

The OptiGrill GC750 is a new model in the OptiGrill Elite lineup. A little web searching has told me that it is currently being sold at Bing Lee, Myer, and numerous online sites such as Catch, eBay, Kitchen Warehouse, not to mention the Tefal Australia web store as well. However, older models such as the GC712 and the GC722 are more widely available than this one… at least at the time of writing this article. So this particular model may not be something you can find everywhere. Although in these Covid-influenced times, online shopping makes that easy to purchase... albeit slower to deliver.

The other thing that surprises me is just how consistent the pricing is. At between $399 and $399.95 (not including shipping). I was genuinely surprised by the lack of discounts and price “padding” out there. I couldn’t find a single sale on this item at all, and I’m a pretty decent bargain hunter.

I know many will agree that $399 is a lot for an electric grill. Especially when competing systems out there come in at cheaper price points. So let me digress for a moment toward a bigger-picture viewpoint.

It may seem strange, that in this world filled with grill-capable ovens, griller-capable stoves, barbecues, sandwich presses, and celebrity-endorsed electric grills by a certain guy named “George F”, that yet another electric grill would make much headway in an already diverse (and some might say, saturated) market. I mean, how often DO people go out of their way to buy an electric grill when so many alternatives exist?

Two sides two every story…

What can a company like Tefal do to impress someone like me who has used their old flat plated cafe-style grill to do everything from sandwiches, bacon, steak, fried/scrambled egg, stir-fry, and much more? Conversely, from a consumer’s perspective. What have I been missing enough to warrant using, and perhaps even buying another electric grill?

If all the marketing is accurate, there might actually be five answers to this that may be found in the OptiGrill Elite GC750:

1. Intelligent, sensor driven “smart” cooking programs. 2. The option for a reasonable amount of manual control where you have a decent temperature range and option of a timer. (Note: Thickness information is not available when using manual mode). 3. Removable and dishwasher safe cook plates. 4. A lot of interesting safety systems. 5. 10 Year warranty, with repair options.

Let’s look at each of these points in depth. Starting with the smart cooking functions:

The smart grill is designed (in theory) to take the variability (and to some extent, skill requirements) out of cooking. To do this, Tefal had to make a “smart” grille. One of the things that I like is that it uses the food thickness to calculate cooking times. However, for very thin foods, you may have to override the system and hold the little control system by the hand and reassure it that you did in fact put a few thin slices of bacon in it. However, at the other end, there are limits to how thick you can go, so once you go past 4cm thick… that can cause issues as well. Remember, it’s a grill, not a slow cooker, oven or sous vide machine.

There are 12 automated cooking programs in the Elite GC750. These are:

a) Burger (for the meat patty, not the entire burger, obviously), b) Poultry, c) Sandwich, d) Sausage, e) Red Meat, f) Fish, g) Bacon, h) Pepper (we call it capsicum in our home) i) Eggplant, j) Potato, k) Tomato, l) Seafood (How is fish not in this category?)

If you feel that’s quite limited, there are two other models of OptiGrill Elite series: There are 16 programs in the Elite XL.There’s also the “OptiGrill Smart” model which is app controlled, and thus has a large, and ever-growing number of cooking programs whenever the app gets updated. However, these are beyond the scope of this review.

2. The “Manual” function for a reasonable amount of manual control where you have a decent temperature range and option of a timer:

For chefs who like to “take control”, there’s also the manual mode. Simply set the temperature between 120 and 270 Celsius (in increments of 10), and you can either run completely manually, or if you want, set a timer to tell you when it’s done. No more “Low”, “Medium”, and “High” settings where you have to guesstimate the temperature it’s operating at, and “guessing” the length of time you’ve been cooking.

Personally, once you’ve reached the limits of the automated functions, the manual mode will allow you to tweak the cooking process to your taste.

3. Removable, dishwasher safe cooking surfaces:

Many of my nights have been spent wiping down my old sandwich press/grill, wishing that I had a better way to clean it. In fairness though, my grill is 22 years old. That predates smart phones, even the first iPod, and for many, broadband Internet… so it’s not a fair comparison. Things in the electric grill market have changed, and many now how removable cooking surfaces.

With the OptiGrill, simply letting the unit cool, unclip the plates from the device and pop them into the dishwasher. Where has this been for the last few decades? My partner won’t use something that can’t go into the dishwasher, so that gets a “big tick” from the matriarch of this household.

Removing the cooled plates is simply a matter of pushing the release buttons on the left side and popping them out. The best part here, is that when the non-stick surfaces fail (as they eventually do), you can simply plug new ones in if they’re available. There are also alternate plates for cooking waffles (sold separately) and some sort of baking accessory which isn’t explained very well on the Tefal web site. There are problems with the site at the time of writing this review which I’ll explain below.

4. Safety systems everywhere:

Now this might be a saviour to some, or a nightmare to others. There are situations outlined in the manual (and some I’ve experienced) where if you have preheated and left it closed for too long without putting food in, it’ll shut down. Similarly, if you preheat, and then leave the grill open for too long, it’ll shut down. If you don’t confirm that you’re still cooking another batch… it’ll shut down. If the food is too thick…… I don’t know, but I suspect it will warn the user, and if it’s not solved, the unit will probably shut down. However, while that may be an annoyance, it’s a lot better than burning your food, or worse, your kitchen.

5. Ten year warranty! With REPAIR?! Finally, someone is taking the problems of support and e-waste generation seriously… or is it too good to be true?:

This blows popular competing brands out of the water. Many of them offer 1, 2, or 3 years warranty, and merely offer to replace the faulty unit.

However, a warranty and service agreement is only as good as the process, and then perhaps more importantly, the result. I’ve looked at ProductReviews archive on a similar older-generation grill… and Tefal seems to have a somewhat hit-and-miss support system. I also find it strange that there are repair/service centres in most Australian capital cities… but not Canberra. Meanwhile, NOWRA, being the not-quite-raging metropolis that it is, does have one. So if you’re a fellow Canberran, you’ll be paying for shipping to either Sydney, Melbourne… or Nowra. <insert rueful chuckle here>.

From what I can find online, the OptiGrill seems to be a pretty high tech device, compared to the modern competition. Whether the addition of multiple sensors and computer controls is an innovation, or merely the opportunity for more to break down at the worst possible moment, I will try to find out. However, after about 17 meals on it, it hasn’t missed a beat yet.

Overview of the unit itself:

The grill itself weighs about 5Kg, which is quite heavy for a grill this size, but it does have a solid feel. Of course the negative of this is the fact that there is no latch to keep it closed, no means to hold the grill open, because when it falls over, you will hear, and likely feel the bang if you’re anywhere near the kitchen.

The cable is only 58cm long, and has nowhere to wind it up. Also there’s no clip to hold the unit closed when moving or storing it. So it needs to be kept in a horizontal position. I have just gotten used to the clip that holds my old grill closed, and I find that I miss it.

Looking for help or more information? Let’s just say that Tefal Australia’s site could do with significant improvement. Tefal’s web site for the OptiGrill:

Unfortunately the OptiGrill website is under construction at the time of writing, so I couldn’t order a waffle plate, and the “bake and snack” accessory came up with a “Page not found”.

I have concerns that these “accessories” are actually designed for a different model of OptiGrill, and there isn’t enough information to make an accurate assessment.

Lorem Ipsum? Am I on the Australian Tefal Page?

I think the biggest hint that the site is still under development, is the standard dummy text place holder (in Latin) that includes the popular phrase: Lorem Ipsum… which if certain academics are to be believed, dates back to 45BC from a book called “The Extremes of Good and Evil” by Cicero.

If you are interested: The quote and meaning are: "Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit..." "There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain…"

Obviously this does not relate to any meaningful information about the OptiGrill range. You have not had a stroke, nor have you lost the ability to read English, even though the site is clearly labelled as Tefal Australia. I've included a screenshot of this to justify my disappointed tangent here.

Unfortunately for the Tefal web team, it seems the OptiGrill Elite (GC750) is already being sold in numerous retailers. It’s somewhat sad that the site is so incomplete. However these Covid-infested times with many people being made redundant may have something to do with this situation. However, that is purely speculation on my part.

Bottom line: The Tefal Australia site is not a reliable source of information at the time of writing. Don’t order any accessories until someone confirms that they are indeed compatible with the GC750. I’ve gambled before on my previous Ambassadorial reviews with positive outcomes, but I just couldn’t justify the risk when so little information is available.

What’s in the box?

Normally I’d measure the size and weight of the box, but it was recycled with prejudice in the whirlwind of insanity that is our home at the moment. There isn’t a lot in the box. 1. The grill. 2. The manual. 3. Recipe book.

The manual is a standard black and white, reasonably easy to read paper booklet. If you prefer colour most of the same information is actually located in the included recipe book as well.

The recipe book looks really impressive on first glance, and has some very nice recipes in it, but by the time you flick through the book, you’ll find that of the 126 pages, only has 40 odd is in English, then it repeats itself in other languages such as German and French.. Now I know we’re a multicultural country, (who isn’t these days) but it seems like a lot of wasted printing to me.

The grill itself impressed me when I unboxed it. It weighs about 5Kg, which is quite heavy for a grill this size, but it does have a solid feel. Of course the negative of this is the fact that since there is no latch to keep it closed, no means to hold the grill open, you want to be careful not to knock it over, because when it closes, you will hear, and likely feel the bang if you’re anywhere near the kitchen… or completely splat the tomatoes in your toastie… as I did.

Conversely, if you don’t like your toasties crushed, there really isn’t a means to wedge/clip/limit the pressure of the upper plate.

The cable is only 58cm long, and has nowhere to wind it up. I can only imagine that this is designed to sit on a bench, conveniently situated near a power point. Also, with the buttons on the handle itself, it’s certainly not inconceivable that you might actually touch a button inadvertently when lifting/closing the grill. So lets talk about using said buttons….

Cooking with the pre-installed programs:

The interface is quite intuitive. There are a total of 6 touch sensitive buttons on the handle of the GC750. - Power - Frozen food - Searing Boost - Left/Right buttons (on either side of the screen) - OK button.

When off, only the power button is visible. The rest require power to illuminate. To cook using an automated function simply:

1. Turn the grill on. 2. Use the screen and the arrow buttons to choose an appropriate cooking function. Then hit OK. If you make any mistakes, you have to turn the grill off, then on again to reset. Then follow the steps again from there. 3. It usually tells you that it’s heating up, and when prompted, put your food in. It’s important that you only put the food in when it’s already hot. 4. The food will start cooking, and regardless of how you like it, the grill will count down until the food has reached the next “doneness”. Once you’ve reached the one you like… 5. Take the food out, and if you’re still cooking, confirm that you are doing so, or stop the unit. This may irritate some as it asks this question every time you want to stop… but I just hit power, then OK, or just turn it off at the wall. I can assure you, both work. :-)

The buttons are clearly labelled, and the colour screen works surprisingly well.

It is critical for you to know that the OptiGrille does not stop cooking at your preferred level of “doneness”. It simply takes your uncooked meat, and cooks it to well done.. or in some one-set-doneness modes, it’ll keep going until it achieves what it considers “cooked” if you leave it. If you run a program like “red meat”, the stages are: blue > rare > medium > well done. So I guess a good analogy is catching a train. When you’re on the “OptiGrill train”, you go along the line until the end, unless you choose to get off at one of the intermediate stations, you keep going until the end of the line. However, like the train station analogy, certain programs like beef patty, chicken, and sausage are “express” lines, and there’s nothing in between raw and done. So some programs give you a chance to get off at specific each points along the way, and others do not. Also, please note that you can take your food off at any time anyway, so there’s a vague “manual override” when using any automatic cooking function.

Anyway...

Once the cooking has started, the OptiGrill gives you a surprising amount of information. It usually involves a count down timer until the next stage (or station) is reached. For example “3 mins 22 seconds (3:22) until medium. Alternatively, it’ll just have a count down until done. This is really handy when you’re throwing a salad together as the meat is cooking. When the timer runs out for each level of doneness, you’ve get an alert tone, and a screen telling you what level has been reached, it pauses for a few seconds, and then moves onto cooking toward the next stage. The colour coded sections around the edge of the screen represent each of the stages of cooking, and there’s a small triangle icon indicating where the cooker is at. It starts at the 3 o’clock point and works it’s way clockwise around the edge of the screen.

The lack of “automatic shut down” seems weird when there are so many safety shutdown triggers. However, this continuing cook process holds true for ALL functions. There’s just too much heat in the plates to simply stop cooking and expect it miraculously stop heating the meat, even if the power is cut. So please remember that the food has to be taken off the grill in order to stop the cooking process.

1. The sausage function:

One of the things that this grill is likely to be used for (unless you’re in a vegetarian/vegan home) is sausages. However, this is one of the somewhat problematic programs in the OptiGrill that I’ve used. For legal reasons, all ground meat (burger patties, sausages, et al) in the UK especially, but also here and the US as well, have to be well cooked in order to ensure consumer safety. I think the sausage function was made with the UK’s risk of “Mad cow disease” in mind, and it has reliably tried to overcook sausages beyond what we would ever need in Australia.

The first meal we cooked on the grill were some thin sausages. While the sausages were not burned, they were definitely dry, or at least much drier than we would normally like it. If you douse your sausages in the sauce of your choice, then this is probably less of a concern. We’ve since tried some (pre thawed, thicker style) Kransky sausages. Now please note that we were only cooking two sausages for this particular meal, so we were a little surprised by the duration. After the initial heat-up period of about 7 minutes, it then tried to tell us it would take 38 minutes to complete the cook.. We found that the sausages were thoroughly cooked at the 23 minute mark. Putting the total prep time to 30 mins… instead of 45 mins as it suggested. Grills are supposed to be quick and convenient, 2 kransky’s in 45 mins is… pretty slow in my book.

My partner and I have both used the sausage function, and after some discussion, we feel that we’re actually better off using the manual mode for sausages, pulling them off early in the automated program, or if bench space is tight, we’ll just use the oven. This automated program overcooks by as much as (38/23min) = 65%, so unless you are there to take it off the grill early, the automated program will take it too far. Now when I say too far, I want to make it clear that it is not burned. Just a dark brown (which I actually like) but the internals will be like a slightly-more-than well done steak, a bit dry and a little chewy.

2. The poultry function:

The poultry function was used to cook both chicken skewers, as well as chicken breasts. In both cases it definitely tried to overcook the meat, but not as much as it did the sausages. Again, it’s not burned, but it’s a bit dry and chewy. Also, I should warn you that sugary marinades will burn easily on the grill, and it is difficult to avoid burned char lines where the grill touches the meat. Having said that, the marinades, while they “gunk up” the grill, clean up quite easily, and help to contain some extra moisture in chicken breasts. Please see my pic of the charred lines a sugary marinade can leave.

I actually found that injecting fluids (usually a mix of lemon juice, melted butter and honey in my case) were a great way to overcome any sense of dryness while imparting flavours and minimising mess.

3. Sandwich function:

In this household, the humble ham, cheese, and tomato toastie isn’t just a food stuff, it’s a way of life, and long held tradition. This function works surprisingly well, although please note that this is not a jaffle maker, so if you want sealed edges, this is not the device for you. I’m very happy with the sandwich/panini function. However, I do sometimes wish there was a way to reduce the pressure on the sandwich. My solution is to use larger slices of bread to distribute the load… or insert two toasties at a time. :-)

4. Red meat function:

Now this is important. If you choose cuts of meat that work well for grilling, you’ll have a great experience with the OptiGrill’s red meat function. If you use cuts of meat that are best for slow cooking, stews, casseroles… then you’re not going to like the results. Unfortunately, this means that it is heavily geared toward some of the more expensive cuts of meat. More so than the cuts of meat typically cooked by those who are on a budget. I suppose the intended audience/meals is not that surprising if the unit costs roughly $400.

The red meat function works surprisingly well for both beef and lamb steaks/chops. The meat, even “well done” is surprisingly moist for a pre-programmed function. Both my partner and I thought that rare, medium rare, and well done were pretty much “spot on”. I’ve included a pic or two showing three steaks, side by side done to rare, medium, and well done.

5. The bacon function:

Now I don’t have the typical thin variety of store-bought bacon in my home very often, as I make my own bacon. I don’t own a meat slicer, so I end up with country style, thick cut bacon… err slices… or perhaps more accurately, bacon steaks. When using the thin, store bought variety, I needed to reassure the Optigrill that I had stuck in the slices of bacon, so it was nice that the thickness detection has an override in this case.

Unsurprisingly, the bacon cooks very quickly, with the grill lines leaving a pattern of charring, and the rest more appropriately described as baked. However, while this is appealing to some, and no doubt cooks the bacon, I prefer using an oven for a more even result. That said, the grill does drain the excess fat away better than flat plated grills.

For people who use maple syrup infused bacon, the increased sugar content burns easily on the grill and leaves a somewhat more acrid flavour.

HOLD the cattle/vegetable branding.

It may shock people, but black grill lines and/or char on steak are not the sign of a perfectly cooked piece of meat. It is a misconception that has been so pervasive, that steak houses add it to appease customer expectations, rather than demonstrate mastery of the grill. Now I know some of you prefer it that way.. but higher-end chefs consider char a straight-out “fail”.

Similarly, Tefal is perpetuating this myth by adding a dedicated “searing boost” button to put those charred lines on, regardless of the program used. It is not a function I would willingly choose to use, and have not done so, since I get enough char lines without it. The theoretical benefit is adding “smokiness” to the flavour… but burning meat isn’t ideal, and burning wood/charcoal add much better smoke flavours.

Now please don’t misunderstand, I don’t mind brown, or even dark brown meat, or even vegetables, this is a sign of the “Maillard reaction” taking place during cooking (proteins breaking down into various aromatic and flavour compounds which makes meals taste more amazing. Think caramelised onions, and the smell of cooking meat). Once you go to black meat, it’s just charred, acrid smelling, tar or ash and it interferes with the rest of the flavours. Feel free to disagree, but I just don’t see the point of this charring function.

Grill versus plate:

Grills certainly have their place. If you’re trying to drain as much fat and oil out of food, then grills certainly have an edge over flat plates. Add the weight of a double sided press, and it will literally squeeze the fat out of meat. It may be healthier, but it’s also drier.

As the thickness of meat goes up, the grill becomes less and less likely to be able to cook the innermost regions of the meat without burning the outside, unless you cook at a low temperature for a longer period of time.

The grill offsets this somewhat by allowing air pockets to reduce the burned bits, but it also concentrates heat into those blackened lines on the meat wherever the grills make contact. However that lower surface contact reduces the chance of food sticking to the plates, which means it should be easier to clean. Which is generally is… if you have a soft wash cloth that can get into the crevices or a soft bristled dishwashing brush. Obviously highly abrasive cleaners are NOT recommended on a non-stick grill. Frankly though, the plate cleans up very easily in the dishwasher so… I’m pretty happy with that.

Conversely, while I can say from many years of experience with my old grill, the flat plate style grills certainly don’t drain the fat away as well, it’s also possible to burn meat across the entire surface.

However, they also have more surface area and transfer the heat more efficiently. Flat plates are also more versatile because you can cook foods such as scrambled eggs on them. Eggs on a grill like this would be a disaster as the egg would cook in all the grooves, likely burn, and be likely difficult to remove due to the shape of the grill.

If there were additional flat plates, or reversible flat/grille plates for the OptiGrill, the appliance would be substantially more versatile. I hope these will become available in the future. However, after some research, I haven’t found any for the GC750 yet.

Manual control:

Call me old fashioned, but my old grill did not have any of these fancy features, and while I am sure they would help beginners to get in the ballpark of a great result, the simple fact is that I have had many fantastic meals on my old flat plate sandwich press. It just took me time and experimentation to do things well, and this grill is no exception.

Unlike my old sandwich press which had no indication of what the actual temperature may be (low medium high were all that was listed), the Optigrill does tell you what the actual temperature is. I found them to be surprisingly accurate, with +/- 3-7 degrees Celsius from the target. Now recipes that call for specific temperatures can be more easily managed.

Learning from the automated features, we quickly the understood the rough time periods each cooking style required. Using a thermometer we had laying about, we found out the typical temperatures for the used automatic modes so we could use it in the manual way. Then, all we had to do was use the temperature setting and tinker with the thickness/temp/time combinations until we got something we liked.

You don’t have to use the time function in the manual mode, but if you know the rough thickness of the meat, and the time it takes to get it done at your set temperature, it’s nice to be told that it’s ready when you’re entertaining guests or just busy preparing other parts of the meal.

I know it sounds like I get the automated features, just to later ignore them, but I think they’re useful to have as an option at least. I would have liked to see some form of calibration setting for some of the automated programs, just to tweak it a little for the foods that I like to make. Having said that, some features work very well, while others can easily be compensated for.

In Conclusion:

I think it’s a very handy grill that performs very well for good cuts of red meats, and the tendency to overcook in other automatic modes can be overcome by a variety of means like removing the food early, injecting additional fluids into meat, or simply using the manual mode to go your own way.

I feel that the $400 price tag is quite high, given the size of it, and the lack of additional grill plate options. Most people would buy a flat plate grill that would be more versatile.

However, being able to set a specific temperature, or cook automatically is handy for beginners, chefs who routinely forget that they started to cook something. It would suit people who have just moved out of home, people who live on campus who may not have access to a kitchen, or someone who has a family with differing meat-cooking preferences.

Honestly, like many grill-like appliances, I can see it spending a lot of time in the back of a cupboard, unused when there are usually viable alternatives like ovens, grillers, barbecues, etc that can grill very well. This needs to be considered against that $400 price tag.

I am very impressed by the 10 Year warranty. Alas, I confess that I do have some reservations about the warranty, given what others have said regarding their warranty experiences with Tefal, but at the end of the day, I cannot say because I simply haven’t tested them. Given the state of their web site, I feel that getting help may be more challenging than I first considered.

The OptiGrill GC750 obviously has a lot of automated features, and that will suit many people. However, I prefer things to be done a little differently here and there, and the functions don’t have a means to be adjusted like that on a permanent basis. So each cooking session needs to be managed if you want to stray from Tefal's path.

I have had some really good meals on this grill. I have no problems saying that. But the price is high for a device like this, and that gives me pause on saying “I’d recommend it to anyone”. Also, when times are tough because of Covid, there are plenty of other methods to make a meal which are within reach of most people.

I hope this review is helpful, and all the best in your cooking endeavours. Stay safe!

Not your average grill!! Love it! – Review Tefal OptiGrill Elite Introduction I think just about every home would have a sandwich toaster of some sort. We have one and we go through fits and starts where a toasted sandwich is a standard lunch, and then it doesn’t get used for a while and it goes back in the cupboard. So when I was offered the opportunity to review the Tefal… Read more

OptiGrill, I was almost going to pass, until I checked it out on their website and thought this could be interesting. It does quite a bit more than just toast sandwiches, and I could see it fitting into what we cook so thought why not!

So what I was keen to know is: • How effective is the Tefal OptiGrill Elite and does it deliver what it says? • How easy is it to use and clean? • Is it worth it?

What is it?

The Tefal OptiGrill Elite (OptiGrill) doesn’t just toast sandwiches. As the name suggests, it grills food. So anything you can grill, this can do it. So it looks like your traditional sandwich toaster or press, but is designed to grill food. It’s also called the OptiGrill because of the visual control panel built into the handle to clearly show and alert you of the various functions and cooking stages. Very clever.

What’s in the box?

So in the box is the OptiGrill, detachable drain tray (for fatty foods), instruction booklet, guarantee and a cookbook. The OptiGrill is quite large, and so was the box it came in, with the standard polystyrene packaging around the grill. I don’t know why manufacturers still persist with this as it can’t be recycled and just goes to landfill. Many manufacturers no longer use it, and instead use cardboard to hold the items securely in place inside the box.

First Impressions

This looks the biz. The outside is stainless steel, with primarily black polycarbonate for the handle and legs, a matt alloy for arm that holds the top plate and front handle. The grill plates unclip so they can be removed for cleaning – nice. When you switch it on, the front panel illuminates. It’s a touch panel too. Very high tech, with a nice colour screen that indicates the selected cooking program, pre-heat and cooking stage. Yes, it has cooking programs but you can also use in ‘manual mode’ too. Using the OptiGrill

This is so easy to use. Basically, you select the program from the menu, it heats up and tells you when it’s ready. You then put in your food, it calculates the thickness of whatever you put in to determine how long to cook it for. Then when it’s ready, it beeps.

The pre-defined programs, or automatic programming do everything. For example, using the automatic program for panini (grilled sandwich), it pre-heats the grill, it beeps to indicate when it’s ready. Pop the sandwich in and close the top plate. It measure the thickness, then starts the countdown. The colour screen has a coloured scale which is meant to represent the different cooking stages. So for a panini, these are lightly grilled, medium grilled, etc. For a steak, the are rare, medium rare, medium, etc. You don’t set the grill level, but when it’s lightly grilled, the OptiGrill will beep to let you know that stage is done, but will keep cooking and will count down again until the next grill level is reached. Sounds complicated? Not really, you just pop whatever in and let it do the rest. I’ve spent two weeks making grilled sandwiches for lunch every day and they are perfect everytime.

We also tried few other things as well. There’s a program for sausages as well and that was so easy. My biggest issue cooking sausages is not just the mess, but also making sure they are cooked through. The OptiGrill was great in this respect. Because you close the top grill over the food, anything that sizzles, doesn’t splatter. Excess fat drains into the removable tray at the front.

In the recipe book there’s some great recipes for the different functions, which admittedly we didn’t get to try them all, but there was one for an eggplant burger that got me thinking. We love grilling and marinating vegetables such as capsicum, eggplant, etc.. but I have an eggplant parmigiana that requires you to slice eggplant, dust with flour and brown in olive oil. So I adapted this for the OptiGrill by flouring up the sliced eggplant but spraying them with a little oil before grilling them in the OptiGrill,, because, there’s a program for grilling vegetables as well!

I’ve still to try all the functions out, but I am very impressed. It’s the sort of product you not think twice about buying if you saw it in the shops, but I think it will be my go to appliance for anything that is to be grilled!

Ease of Cleaning

There’s no point in something that is hard to clean as it defeats the purpose of a device being a time-saver. Unlike our old sandwich press, the grill plates on the OptiGrill are removable. You push a button on the side to unlock them and they pop out easily. They have a non-stick coating so a quick wash under warm soapy water is all they need. So far, nothing I’ve cooked has baked on.

The bottom plate has these little blunt spikes, and the top plate little indents to match. I gather these are to keep anything you place on the OptiGrill in place as there is quite a slope to let any fat or oil drain away. And if you’re wondering how to remember which one goes where, it’s easy as they are designed so that the plate with the little spikes can only go on the bottom, and the one with the indents can only go on top. (Side Note: You can purchase a set of flat grill plates too.)

In summary, it is really easy to clean!

Storage

As I mentioned earlier, it is larger than most sandwich presses as you can see on the photo’s. It’s also not designed to be stored upright like our sandwich press. So depending on your own kitchen, usage and storage, you may need to decide where it lives permanently. It’s not particularly heavy, just probably a little awkward to get out and put away each time.

Conclusion and recommendation

I really, really, really liked the Tefal OptiGrill and was really surprised that I did. It’s not your average sandwich press either because it does several things that two or more separate devices would do. If you grill meat a lot, you’ll find it takes the guess work out of cooking and the really easy cleaning is a bonus.

What I liked: • Ease of use is A+ • Consistent cooking results each time for the recipes I tried. • Very easy to clean due to non-stick surfaces and removable grill plates

What I didn’t like: • Maybe a little pricey, but potentially could replace the messy alternatives.

Would I buy one:

Yes!

Delightful Results Without Any Guesswork – Experience and Use: The Tefal OptiGrill Elite is a well-made unit, it has a nice solid feel. Enough weight for it to sit firmly on your bench and not budge but not so much that relocation is annoying. Tefal is a well-known household brand associated with convenience, innovation and quality. The OptiGrill Elite is no exception. The inbuilt cooking… Read more

guides are the stand out feature and make all the difference. There is no guesswork at all and we were presented with amazing results on all but one occasion. We tried potato, pumpkin, beef burgers, toasted sandwiches, chevapchichis, bacon, marinated chicken breast and four porterhouse steaks (at once). There is also a manual option if you wish for more control.

Everything was done to our liking except the chicken, which was prepared per the included recipe guide. Unfortunately, it was a little overdone and perhaps not as juicy as it could have been, it was still eaten and enjoyed. I believe this was due to the juices ending up in the drip tray and a cooking time that was maybe longer than needed. Either way they turned out better than if I had barbequed them. I always overcook chicken out of fear of under-doneness.

Everything else was stellar. Crispy bacon, crunchy and gooey cheese and ham sandwiches, tender potato and the best steak I have cooked at home. You definitely need to have faith in the auto times. I was a little uncertain what my toastie might look like at the “crispy” setting. After several minutes, I thought the bread would have been charcoal, it wasn’t and I ended up enjoying a very nice lunch.

The user interface is genius, even if at first I thought a screen in a grill was overkill, however it takes the simplicity of use to another level. After pressing the power button, you are only a few finger taps from getting started and it’s very self-explanatory. The two options available with each program, frozen and/or extra sear truly deliver what they say. We cooked Chevups from frozen and they were nicely seared very juicy and not at all fatty. The sear function had a good workout when we cooked four porterhouse steaks at once. Our steaks used the entire grill surface and proved the Tefal OptiGrill Elite has plenty of power to brown and food doesn’t just steam.

When preparing items as part of our meal I was astonished at the cooking speed. Potatoes in 14 minutes, burgers in 6 and four steaks quicker than I could set table.

A drawback for me is once you are done, you can’t just press the power button to turn it off, each time I found myself having to answer the question “Any refill?”, choosing “No” and then selecting “OK” to power off. This more of an annoyance when cooking bacon as it’s too thin for the thickness calculation to determine if food is still present. I had no option but to turn it off at the power point once finished. It’s a similar process if you accidentally start the wrong auto program, there is no option to go back, you simply must “reboot” and go again.

The option to repeat the same program after your first batch is a nice touch, however you cannot immediately put food in and go. The grill repeats the preheating, which is quicker than if it were cold, however still take two to three minutes.

These are not detrimental to the cooking results, however do draw away from the user friendliness somewhat.

Care, cleaning and storage: Cleaning is as quick as a snap. The detachable, dishwasher safe grill plates and dishwasher safe drip tray make it a breeze to clean as you can leave it to your dishwasher. I was also sure to try cleaning by hand and with some hot soapy water and my trusty brush. A minute later I was left nothing but spotless grill plates, ready for their next use.

This isn’t an appliance you can lock shut, wind the power cable up and store vertically in your cupboard, its only position is horizontal. I expect most people will leave their grill set up on their benchtops ready to use. I personally would have liked to see a feature where the gill could be stored away.

It was nice to find that most foods produced very little smoke if any at all. With that being said I would certainly recommend turning it on for the first time in a well-ventilated area or under your rangehood when the “new appliance” smell burns off. The most convenient place we use ours is under the rangehood with a large chopping board to keep it stable.

Summary: A quality appliance that is truly in a field of its own. Pushing ease and convenience further than I thought was possible. Some small annoyances in the user interface and ours has a very minor issue where the label hasn’t been positioned quite right and has kinked up – Picture below. If you enjoy grilled food or perhaps live in an apartment or a barbeque isn’t an option I highly recommend looking at the Tefal OptiGrill Elite. I’m happy to have one in our cooking arsenal and look forward to many years of quality cooking and convenience.

As this is a unique product, check out some of the videos Tefal has on YouTube by searching “Tefal Optigrill Elite playlist”. I found these videos very informative and can give a good idea of features. Pros: Fast, Easy to clean and satisfying food with little effort.

Cons: Strong first use smell – I recommend heating up to maximum temperature twice before cooking No vertical storage options Minor niggles with the user interface

Great Grill, no effort required & easy to clean – Great little grill for the bench top. *QUALITY PRODUCT* Cooks a great steak and a mean toasty!! Superb! Standard size cord, could be a little longer. Some really good pre-set cooking settings to choose from - that includes a defrost option also. Digital screen makes selection process easy and straight forward. Shows cooking time-frame and arrow… Read more

points to how cooked your meat is starting from blue to well-done.

Also has an extra sear option for those that like the flame grilled taste just minus the flame. Pleasant sound to indicate that you food has finished cooking. Grill detects size of meat and adjust times to cook perfectly every time.

Preheat time is not instant so bare this in mind, it’s just a little longer to heat up then a fry pan. Very impressed with the build of this grill as it’s very sturdy and the hot plates come out with one push of a button for super easy cleaning, no scrubbing required! My only suggestion (if I’m going to be picky) would be to add a grill plate wash sponge that fits into the grooves - but defiantly not a necessity.

If you’re checking your meat, you do have to be aware of your hand placement as you don’t want to accidently hit a button and disturb the cooking process.

Manual option available if required, you can choose your temperature and cook time. Overall finish of the food is great, the taste and the look is very pleasant. Great for those watching their weight or cholesterol as it eliminates fats from your food which ends up in the drip tray provided.

Have cooked a few things on this Grill and love the convenience and hassle free cooking and cleaning that comes with it.

*BONUS* Comes with cook book and easy to read manual.

Open to doing more videos and answering questions about this product… please message me for more details or requests.

Steaks to perfection – Edit (Aug 2021): We’ve had this grill nearly a year now and I can honestly say this is one of the most used items in our home. I won’t edit my original review below so you can see what I thought early on, but I would say that we now feel it is absolutely worth the price tag!! On average we use it at least a few times per week, some weeks it’s… Read more

used a few times per day. We have recommended it to several of our friends and family to purchase as it has simplified and sped up so many of our meals, and a year on it still cleans as perfectly as it did the first time. We’ve learnt how to use it more efficiently for midweek meals and often use the grill for reheating veges cooked in bulk on the weekend. I also find I never bother to cook frozen patties or vegetarian sausages any other way now, as this grill cooks them so fast and so perfectly. No question in my mind that if anything happened to it I’d happily purchase this product again in the future!

Original review (Oct 2020): We’ve used this product for a number of different meals and have found things we would definitely use it for, and others we probably wouldn’t again. First the Pros and Cons, then I’ll let you know how each meal went.

Pros - 10 year repair warranty - Function to cook directly from frozen - Bacon, steak and burgers cooked well and quickly (once preheat is complete) - Touch screen is easy to navigate, only had a few times where I wasn’t sure how to adjust something - Ease of use - Easy to assemble & disassemble - Cleaning is quick and easy - Dishwasher safe (time is sanity, so I’m VERY grateful for this feature) - Does what it says and can cook a steak to rare, medium or well-done without guesswork or constant checking - Inclined grill plates allowing oil/juice runoff into the drip tray - The provided Users Manual seems fairly comprehensive and includes a number of suggested recipes - Auto settings for several types of meats and vegetables, and a manual setting for anything else - Easy to adjust temperature and timer in manual setting - Notifications at rare/medium/well-done so that your steak is cooked perfectly for each person - Display shows progress throughout preheating, so you know approximately how long until it will be ready for you to insert the food, then a timer shows how long remains until you can remove the food cooked to the desired level.

Cons - Probably too small for family meals - We found it too small/slow to cook different ingredients of the same meal. As the auto settings are designed for one ingredient only at a time, some ingredients may go cold while you preheat and cook the next ingredient of the meal - No way to prevent oil getting on nearby surfaces if your food spits - Incline of the grill plates (yes, this is a Pro and a Con), as food likes to slide off before the top grill plate comes down to hold it in place - Uneven slice thicknesses can impact optimal cooking as you don’t flip the food half way through unlike in a fry pan - Preheat time - sometimes seems excessive, especially when you are just reloading it with the same ingredient straight away - Notifications at each stage of cooking can be a little quiet at times if you have other noise in the background

Potential improvements - A list in the manual or menu of approximate cooking times for each auto setting would be helpful. We found a big difference in cooking times between steak and sausages that appeared to be of similar thickness. Obviously food thickness plays a big role in cooking time so any indication could only be approximate, but it would still be helpful prior to going through the preheat process so that you can plan which ingredient should be cooked first and last. This would help ensure everything is still warm at the time of serving, and to know when we may need to employ a second frypan etc to ensure the meal is ready all at the same time. - Might be nice to be able to lock the top grill plate so that it doesn’t crush the food as much. eg. If you like thick hashbrowns or halloumi, you’ll probably be disappointed once the weight of the top grill has squashed it flatter. But in my opinion this Con is balanced out as it makes these foods crispier (big Pro!) - Potato only appears to have “soft” setting, would be nice to have a crispy setting for sliced

Foods In the last few weeks we’ve used this product for several different meals so here’s how they all went. - Steak - As hubby likes medium rare (and this isn’t a preset option) he decided to take the steak off halfway between the rare and medium settings (1.5mins after rare and 1.5mins before medium). This seems to work quite well, and given that this is probably the main selling point of this product, it seems to do as it promises. Also, given that neither of us are particularly great at cooking meat it was a nice change to find that it came out perfect! - Bacon - Quickly cooks bacon to crispy even on the first setting. The crispy setting was a little crispier/tougher than hoped, but I guess that’s a personal preference. The downside was waiting for preheating between serves, as we wanted to cook 4 pieces of bacon and only two could fit at a time, it required a preheating step again before we could insert the second serve of bacon. - Sausages - The first sausages we chose unfortunately spit oil everywhere so we had to put rags on the floor to catch the oil and prevent us slipping as the grill does not have walls to prevent oil spray. Unlike putting a lid on a frypan, with this product you cannot prevent or limit the mess if your food decides to start spitting as the sides and front are open. The cooking took quite a while, but once they were done the sausages were well cooked. - Cheerio sausage - we did not have the “spitting” issue with this type of sausage, and again, well cooked, though we used the manual setting for this one. - Vegetarian burger patty - I cooked this using the frozen function on the auto burger setting. Initially I had a bit of a fight with the machine trying to figure out how to get it to recognise that my burger patty was frozen, but ended up realising that I had to select the frozen setting before even selecting that I wanted to cook a burger. I thought I’d had to select it during preheating (i.e. after selecting burger but before it was ready for me to insert food) as that is what it appears to say in the manual, but I got there in the end. It was probably still a little bit cold to be honest after the medium setting, not that it wasn’t cooked, but it just didn’t stay very warm for very long so I threw it back in for 30 seconds and it was fine then. - Sliced potatoes and pumpkin - These didn’t really go crispy and we found the grill to be quite specific to slice thickness when cooking veges - i.e. potato and pumpkin didn’t cook very evenly between slightly thinner and thicker pieces, I guess this is partly due to the fact it’s designed to be cooked evenly from top and bottom so you don’t flip them part way through cooking like you would in a frypan. - Hashbrowns - used the potato setting to cook these. The only option was “soft” for potatoes, no option for crispy, though due to the incline of the grill plates any liquid ran away allowing the hashbrowns to go lovely and crispy around the edges without having to cook them in oil. Noticed big differences in cooking times though based on hash brown thickness. I had two equal sized potatoes, I used 1 potato to make three hashbrowns, and used the other potato to make 2 hashbrowns - these took 12mins and 20mins to cook even though they came out the same thickness each time. - Asparagus - I used the manual setting, 210oC for 2mins, grilled to perfection in my opinion. - Halloumi - Again, I used the manual setting at 210oC for 2mins. It was quite flat at the end of cooking, but I didn’t care. Still juicy but crispy as well! Absolute perfection. - Cheese toasty - One of my favourite uses for the product was for the humble cheese toasty. Due to the inclined cooking plates, it meant that when the cheese melted out of the sandwich (as a good toasty should always do!), the excess oils ran down into the drip tray, while the majority of the cheesy goodness remained on the plates next to the toasty.. so.. lovely crispy cheese, with less of the fat. Makes you almost feel good about your poor meal choice ;)

Summary - Can only cook one ingredient at a time, making it necessary to have some food either going cold or being kept warm in the oven while you cook remaining ingredients. This we found was really disappointing when our halloumi which had been cooked to perfection went soggy while we cooked the bacon and asparagus. It also means that you can spend considerable time waiting for preheating between batches if you have more to cook of the same item. - Incline of the grill plates - love that the oil and juices run off into the drip tray, making the meal a little healthier and allowing food to become crispier. Though it can take some juggling to keep the food on there until the lid comes down - Cleaning - Wiping it with paper towel when it’s hot is a super easy way to keep it clean. Love that the grill plates and drip tray can easily detach to go through the dishwasher - time is sanity, so anything that saves me time will always be a bonus in my opinion. - The surface area of the grill plates is similar to that of a medium sized frypan, ie. not overly large. It’s fine if you’re only cooking 2 or 3 steaks, but if you have a whole family to cook for, or if you want to grill lots of sliced vegetables you may find you’ll still need to use a frypan as well. For the two of us to have sausages with potato and pumpkin slices, it took an hour to cook. So with the usual busy lives of a working couple, this was far too long in our opinion to make it feasible to use for cooking entire mid week meals. In the future we will probably cook the meat on the grill, while using frypans for the rest of the meal. - This product delivers on what it’s advertised to do. While not a cheap appliance at $399, if your household regularly eat steak, then this appliance could certainly come in handy, as the features of thickness calculation, rare/medium/well-done notifications, and the option to cook from frozen also being taken into account make this product great for ease of use and for impressing your guests with your steak-cooking skills.

Convenient and quick – I will start out by saying this is a very smart and easy to use grill. The programs and settings are easy to follow and use. You select the item you are cooking from the menu and it will pre heat and then the screen will prompt you with what to do next. It measures the thickness of the meat once placed on the plate and it will then determine how… Read more

long it needs to cook based on what it is and how thick it is.

If you don’t want to use a program you can also cook the meat or whatever you are cooking manually.

The grill and drip tray are dishwasher safe which is super convenient. They are easy to attach and remove.

We cooked chicken patties on there, they came out better than on the bbq and with much less oil in them. They came out lovely and crispy. The amount of oil that came out shocked me! I know they’re full of oil but heck!!

I cooked marinated chicken breast on there, they turned out ok, some pieces were a little dry but for the most part, if you’re in a hurry or time poor and your chicken is all a similar thickness it will turn out pretty good! I would definitely cook it on there again. Such a great time saver as you don’t have to stand there and keep an eye on it so it doesn’t burn. The marinade however stuck a little bit, less than it would in a pan or on the bbq but i just gave it a wipe between cooking so I didn’t build up or burn.

Another time we cooked steak for steak sandwiches on there. We bought our usual porterhouse from the butchers which are delicious! We used the steak setting and if I’m being 100% honest, I wouldn’t use it again and I wouldn’t cook steak on here again, which is what it is advertised to do well. You can select between rare, medium and well done. There’s an option for extra grill marks also. We did them medium but it came out well done and was really really chewy. When we usually cook them on the bbq they come out tender and juicy. It was really hard to chew..

All in all it is a smart, convenient and time saving machine which I will use again and again but just not for steak.

Convenient for people on the go! – The Tefal Optigrill is a really impressive looking machine. The digital display and chrome finish mean are really nice features. It is a very quick and easy way to cook. I was able to cook for my family while doing other things. There is a count down timer and a chime to let you know when its done. The machine is really easy to clean - I just… Read more

popped the trays in the dishwasher. The recipe book is a nice edition too.

The first trial was a really nice cut of steak and I was disappointed to find it was over cooked. I did try again a few days later and it was cooked "medium" perfectly. The steak was flattened a little too much on both occassions - they were good quality cuts and probably flattened to half the thickness. Being able to set how 'well done' to cook the food is a great feature.

I've used it to cook chicken breast a few times and i'm a really big fan of the result. It has a crispy outside without drying out the inside. Bacon also cooks great. I had good results when cooking lamb cutlets and pork chops. The defrost function is fantastic and I also love that the meat doesn't cook in its oil. The fats are collected in the drip tray.

I actually use this machine alot - particularly while working from home and cooking lunch for my family. It's perfect if you are time poor but it isn't going to compare to spending time cooking your meal slowly...nor would I expect it to.

A much better version of the electric hotplate with very, very good electronic control – Recently we received a Tefal Optigrill Elite as a part of Product Review’s Ambassador Program, so let’s start at the beginning. - Packaging and Documentation It arrived in a sturdy cardboard box with the unit well supported in polystyrene packing so you can be highly confident of receiving your purchase in good, undamaged condition. The package… Read more

includes the assembled grill, a drip tray, a user manual, warranty card and a recipe book. The manual is in eight languages, such is the global world of today, but at least that means we only had to read one eighth of it. To be honest, at my age the writing was too small (!) but the included Recipe Book tells you all you need to know, again in eight languages, and you get away with reading only the first twelve pictorial pages to get up to speed. Something I thought I would like to see Tefal provide is a laminated cheat card based on their cooking guide that you could store with the unit for quick reference, but once I turned it on I found the whole thing to be very intuitive, so I quickly put that idea away.

- The Unit First impressions? It’s a seriously better-looking unit than the grills I am used to, and my expectation is that the design will make it cleaner to operate and easier to clean after use, but we’ll see when we get to try it. Construction appears to be of a good quality and though I am always sceptical of electronic controls on kitchen equipment, the controls are simple and minimal with an informative screen and a couple quick touch options; one to cook frozen food and the other to sear the outsides, both options on automatic cooking programs. Turning it on puts it into start up mode where you select your language. If you get that wrong, simply read the trouble shooting guide in the manual and you can reset the language. You’ll understand the operating menu very quickly noting that there are eight automatic choices dependent on the food type plus a manual setting that you’ll need to watch over. The automatic settings beep you when a point is reached, such as a medium-rare cooking level. The machine is clever in that you pre-heat the machine, put the protein in; it measures the thickness; then waits for the protein to be placed on the plates; then it starts to cook and alerts you at very rare, rare, medium or well done. (less indications for some proteins that don’t handle very rare, chicken for instance!) Nicely the front display is structured to show where you are in the cooking period, as an indicator arrow moves around the screen thru pre-heat, thickness then each of the stages which assists in timing your other cooking activities. One thing to note; if you reload it you need to ‘reset’ the unit by going back to pre-heat function, which does add a few minutes to the turn around time.

- Size of The Plates The cooking area is a generous 600 square centimetres whereas a large (circular) frying pan is about 450 square centimetres and those large frying pans take up a sizable proportion of your cooktop while only cooking one side at the time, so the Optigrill is a winner on that aspect. Size limitations on the Optigrill only arose when we compared it to the area of an outside barbeque; the Optigrill holds its own compared to inside cooking surfaces where simultaneously cooking four or five T-bone steaks will always be an issue.

- Cooking with the Optigrill Firstly, plan in advance as it takes a few minutes to preheat. Our first effort was one of the recipes in the Recipe Book suggestions (Beef Fillet Marinated in Asian Sauce) and it cooked a kilo of rump steak to perfection in under five minutes. Then you put the grill plates and drip tray in a dishwasher, wipe the bench down and you’re done. We took the meat out when the unit indicated Medium, which in our opinion was medium rare, but you’ll work those details out on your own. And the feedback; very tasty recipe and beautifully cooked steak. Our second effort was toasted sandwiches in the Panini program and it knocks out a very evenly cooked sandwich though as is the case with all this style of grill it does flatten the sandwich a bit, but we consider that to be the best way to eat them. You can easily cook four sandwiches at once. We tried vegetables on it, their Tomatoes a la Provencale recipe for one, but that was a trial as they kept sliding off the lower tray until we managed to lodge them in. The design of the lower tray is sloping to run the oil off into the drip tray, so next time we cut the bottoms off to afford some grip to the lower tray. But the tomatoes with fetta added made for an enjoyable snack. On the whole vegetable cooking was a bit up and down as firmer vegetables retained their shape better, while softer riper vegetables tended to get flattened.

- What it Won’t Cook We quickly determined that it wasn’t going to work for liquid ingredients, such as pikelet mixes and eggs due to its sloping surface, a benefit though in the draining of fats and oils. Additionally, and the Cooking Guide highlights this; it is not suited to food mixes. Use it for the meat, the fish or a panini but rely on the oven, microwave or hob for your other items. This is not a bad thing as it replaces the barbeque or a large frying pan for meat and fish in an easier to clean manner. Tefal offer bacon as one of their presets, but as you often add eggs and tomato to that menu, a frying pan comes into its own for bacon ‘n eggs. An observation here; we’d rather a utensil that did one or two jobs well rather than many poorly, and the Optigrill fits into the former category; you’ll eat a lot of steak!.

- Cleaning Up After Use The Cooking Guide, and probably that tiny printed manual, tell you to simply place the drip tray and plates in the dishwasher; you gotta love that. And, because they are smallish, they fit quite easily without taking up an entire rack. The tray just pulls away and the two plates have a quick release button each making cleaning a doddle but do wait until it has cooled down before disassembly And, that dishwasher trick nearly worked for us. I say nearly because after meat the dishwasher sometimes left a burnt marinade on the plate grooves but that easily brushed off, just leaving a wipe down of the casing with a dishcloth. You will need a decent wipe down as it emits a reasonably significant (oily) steam while cooking. Hand washing the plates is tricky due to the plate grooves so dishwasher is the best option.

- Storage This is a large unit, so our first task was to work out where to store it when not in use; likely with a butler’s pantry you would leave it out on a bench, but in our case we had to roll over a couple older devices in the cupboard which probably wasn’t a bad idea.

- In Closing It’s not all things to all people. We found it good for cooking meats and sandwiches and things like tomatoes a la provencale as a snack (remember to add fetta) but really found it best at knocking out a perfectly cooked steak with minimal effort, minimal mess and an easy clean up. A lot of our family favourite meals could not be migrated to the Tefal for cooking so when we used it we needed to look for variations; not a bad thing in itself.

Plusses: • The electronic menu is very, very easy to follow • Cooks a really good steak with minimal fuss • Excellent for toasties • Cooks very evenly across the entire plate • The sloping grill plates cleanly remove excess oil/fats from the cooking process • Very easy to clean after use • Well suited to a bench top bbq role • It looks impressive Minuses • Very much a one substance at the time solution (not suited to full meals) • Sloping plate can be an issue for some cooking • Is a bulky device to store

A great way to grill food – The Tefal OptiGrill Elite is a very clever machine using modern technology to measure the thickness of selected food and adjust the cooking accordingly, letting you know with an audio signal and electronic display that the food is ready. It comes well packed in an attractive carton, unfortunately the main packing inside is polystyrene which is… Read more ·  1

not recyclable.

The instructions are clear and easy to follow. The controls are easy to use and understand. The cooking plates come away easily for cleaning, and are dishwasher safe. The overall construction appears to be good quality and the electronic display is very easy to read and understand.

The first thing I cooked on the grill was bacon, I let it go to crispy, it turned out very nice. It does smoke, so I would only cook bacon with adequate ventilation or an exhaust fan. The second thing I cooked was thick English style pork sausages straight out of the freezer. I set the menu on the grill to sausages and hit the frozen button, I was pleasantly surprised, they were properly cooked.

The big test for any type of grill is a steak and my favourite is a good quality porterhouse, and I had one at room temperature. I selected beef on the grill with searing and waited for the grill to warm up, when it indicated to add the food I placed the seasoned and oiled steak in the grill and when it indicated rare, I let it continue on halfway to medium then I removed the steak and let it rest, the steak was cooked to perfection. Same results with lamb loin chops, yummy!

I cooked a couple of Tasmanian Atlantic Salmon fillets and let the grill indicate when they were cooked, for my liking they were a little over cooked, that is a very easy thing to overcome in the future by removing the fillets a little earlier, the count down timer makes that very easy. Jamie Oliver fish fingers cooked nicely on the grill. They are the only fish fingers I can buy that aren't made from mince.

A hamburger patty was cooked just right on “well done”, I personally don't like undercooked hamburgers although the grill gives the option from rare. A surprisingly lot of fat came out of the hamburger patty while cooking it and went into the drip tray, I suppose that makes it healthier, it certainly did not lack any flavour, it was great.

I made a half batch of Potato Rostis from recipe in the the instruction book, they turned out nice. Frozen hash brown also cooked up well using the potato setting plus frozen.

The included recipe for Grilled Aubergines (Eggplants) with Pesto was very good, I will certainly do that one again.

I would not recommend the grill for cooking small ripe tomatoes, they just get squashed with the juice and seeds ending up in the drip tray.

It certainly does a great job toasting various breads on their own or as sandwich.

I tried the manual setting for defrosting and warming up pre-cooked Bratwurst, it was good for that. With time I reckon I will use the manual setting more often on some foods as I get more experienced on using the grill.

Overall I am very impressed with the Tefal OptiGrill Elite, after warming up it certainly cooks the food very quickly and beautifully. When cooking more than one type of food on the grill a warming oven is essential if you want all your food hot at the same time. I have not cooked all the foods I would like to before completing my review. The Tefal OptiGrill Elite certainly raises the bar on this type of cooking appliance.

I would certainly recommend the Tefal OptiGrill Elite as a kitchen appliance for those who love to “Grill”, a good alternative to a BBQ if not wanting to cook a lot of food at a time and without the bother of firing up the BBQ.

Rare, Medium or Dry? A Meat and Plant-Based Road Test – At first glance, the Tefal OptiGrill Elite looks like a big, sleek, high-tech sandwich maker. But with a $399 price tag, you would hope it does more than cook a perfect cheese and ham toastie... so we took it on a food variety road test to see if it appeases meat-lovers and vegans alike. I say “we” because Hubby eats virtually everything except… Read more

coriander, while I sit on the sliding scale from plant-based to the occasional fish and seafood. At least this makes it interesting to test the OGE’s grilling range.

For red meat, the OGE promises perfect grilling results from rare to well-done. This is undoubtedly, the major drawcard for potential buyers. But the OGE also grills chicken, fish, seafood and vegetables, and with automatic cooking programs and a thickness measurement, it should take your grilling prowess from novice to pro in a press (or two) of an arrow-button.

First though, the functions and specs of the OptiGrill Elite:

- Searing boost: while there will be grill marks on your food without this function, you can select the Searing boost to create intense, restaurant-like searing.* - Can cook from Frozen*: a convenient feature if you’ve forgotten to defrost meat earlier in the day, or if your food is cook-from-frozen only. - 12 automatic cooking programs: beef steak, burger, panini, sausage, fish, chicken breast, bacon, seafood, potato, aubergine (eggplant), tomato and pepper (capsicum). I found it curious that two vegetable sides you would typically grill with your meat - corn and onion - aren’t included in these programs. (As long as you cut the corn into slices of about an inch, you should still be able to grill it). For corn, onion, zucchini, mushrooms, tofu and any other food that doesn’t have a program, you can use the Manual mode, as I have done with the Vegan Yakitori below. Note that if you want to use an automatic program, you cannot insert your food before the OGE has pre-heated (you can for Manual mode). - Manual mode: adjustable temperature and cooking time - Automatic thickness measurement: to calculate optimal grilling time - High performance of 2180W: from die cast aluminium grill plates - Inclined plates and drip tray to catch juices - Intelligent cooking guide with countdown timer - Dishwasher safe grilling plates and drip tray

NB: *These two functions are for the 12 automatic programs only.

The functions of the OGE make it somewhat like a mini barbecue - with some potentially big drawbacks. It can feasibly be used for teppanyaki recipes but doesn’t quite perform the same way as an electric teppanyaki grill: the top lid/grill plate flips open, blocking guests’ view, and the inclined plates affect how much marinade soaks into the food.

Onto The OGE Road Test...

We wanted to test the OGE’s versatility as well as its functions. We chose three meats: chicken, beef steak and fish. We also chose four plant-based dishes: potatoes, capsicum, vegan yakitori skewers and plant-based burgers. Some recipes were from the included OGE recipe book. The book includes 26 recipes covering meat, fish and seafood, vegetables and snacks & sandwiches. The vegetable recipes are mostly side dishes, with the exception of bean-based vegetarian steaks and aubergine burgers.

One thing we didn’t have a chance to try was using the OGE for paninis. From the looks of things in the recipe book, it involves grilling meats (say, bacon), assembling the panini or sandwich with other ingredients, then grilling the whole thing. This expands the range of the OGE, but does indeed, make it an overpriced sandwich maker if you don’t use the other programs regularly.

For recipes from the recipe book, we made minor substitutions where necessary (the joys of COVID lockdown and restricted variety!) However, the recipes instructions were followed exactly. I’ve indicated what aspect of the OGE was being tested, and the result. Photos are below.

Greek Style Chicken Kebabs (from the OGE recipe book) Testing: Chicken Program Verdict: Dry. FAIL

My husband loves chicken and was keen to try this as his first recipe on the OGE. He selected the Chicken program as directed. Interestingly, the OGE didn’t give an option as to how well he wanted the chicken to be cooked. At the four minute mark, he lifted the lid/top grill plate and said, “The kebabs look done.” I said, “Leave them in, the auto program hasn’t stopped yet. We’ve gotta trial this thing properly.” The OGE finally beeped at 15mins, delivering perfectly dry chicken. He ate some and tossed the rest.

Beef Steak Testing: Beef Steak Program. Grill to “Medium” Verdict: Magnificent. PASS

This is truly the gold star item for the OGE: what it was designed to do. And it does it exceptionally well. After pre-heating, Hubby popped in two cuts of raw Angus beef steak. It beeped when it reached “Rare” and again when it reached “Medium” The OGE delivered beautiful grill marks even without the Searing function. Upon slicing the steak, it seemed cooked with a lovely pink blush in the core. Hubby enjoyed eating it so much he could barely speak. Later, he told me it was juicy and tender. Brilliant.

Salmon Testing: Fish Program and Searing Function. Grill to “Medium” Verdict: Chewy and dry. FAIL

For this cook, I cooked two batches of salmon, one with the Searing function and one without. I started with the regular grilling first. I chose the Fish program, waited for the OGE to pre-heat and popped in the fish. In less than six minutes, the salmon was grilled to “Medium”: delicate, flakey and moist. However, the heat of the OGE must encourage the fish to keep cooking once plated because in a few minutes, it became chewy. If I had left the salmon in for another half a minute, it would’ve cooked to “Medium-Well”, and assumedly, be even less appetising.

The Searing Function, as you could imagine, delivered worse results for the texture of the fish. There was minimal difference visually between the seared fish and non seared fish (see photo below; the fatter salmon chunk was seared). When it was time to plate up, it was way over cooked: dry and chewy.

Parmesan & Herb Potatoes (from the OGE recipe book) Testing: Potato Program Verdict: Soft and fluffy, but be prepared to wait. PASS

The humble spud can be surprisingly difficult to cook right in the oven or on the barbecue. Because thickness is imperative to the OGE (any ingredient must be less than 4cm thick), you have to slice the potatoes first, so there’s no traditional baked spuds using this machine. I hand-sliced the potatoes so they were uneven. There was the usual pre-heating, then a 17min cooking time using the Potato program to get the first batch to grill to “soft”. (Subsequent batches needed less grilling time). Because of the uneven slices, the thinner slices didn’t get the grill lines from the top plate. But it was only an aesthetic thing, still tasted delicious.

I used five medium Dutch cream potatoes, which yielded three batches. That meant almost an hour of grilling alone, plus pre-heating and switch-over time.

I would grill one or two potatoes in this fashion in the future but for bigger batches, the oven or barbecue is still easier.

NB: The inclined plates made it tricky to position the potato slices on the bottom grill plate without them sliding off. The best way I found was to first place slices on the grill plate’s row of raised dots (which are about a third of the way up the grill plate), then balance more slices on top of the others.

Italian Grilled Peppers (from the OGE recipe book) Testing: Pepper Program Verdict: Delicious, albeit squashed. PASS

Using the Pepper (capsicum) program, the OGE grilled the capsicum beautifully, with light searing marks. I used multi coloured capsicum and cut them into halves. They weren’t lovely and plump as they are in the recipe book’s photo; the lid/top grill plate is quite heavy and squashed the capsicum. As with the potatoes above, they were tricky to position on the bottom grill plate without them sliding off. Not really a side dish to offer fussy guests, but tasted delicious: roasted and sweet.

Vegan Yakitori Skewers Testing: Manual Mode Verdict: Uneven due to different ingredients on skewers. JUST PASS

The recipe book clearly indicates that only one ingredient is to be cooked at a time. This makes for boring skewers. I threaded chunks of red and green capsicum, button mushrooms, diced tofu and shiitake mushrooms onto skewers. (I had made my own teriyaki sauce and marinated the tofu for 10mins prior.) Then I played with the Manual mode, which involves adjusting the arrows to the desired heat, pre-heating, then selecting the length of cooking time.

The recipe book suggests that mushrooms are cooked between 220 and 270 deg C. Because the skewers were mostly comprised of mushies, I selected 260 deg C, 2mins each side (ie, one flip). While the outside of the ingredients was nicely grilled, the mushrooms and capsicums were still raw. The tofu was cooked fine.

I then experimented with the heat/time combo some more - just as you would with a barbecue hot plate - and came to 200 deg C, 6 mins each side. The capsicums were beautiful, the mushrooms were a bit over cooked and the tofu was very over cooked and chewy. Edible and flavourful, but not overly impressive.

This grill didn’t go so great, partly because I used mixed ingredients, partly because I started with the heat too high, even though it was within the recommended range for mushrooms.

I would try this again, with single ingredient skewers, at 200 deg C for 4 - 5 mins each side.

Veggie Burger Testing: Burger Program and Frozen function. Grill to “Medium” Verdict: Tender and grilled just right. PASS

I used Morning Star Farms Grillers Prime Veggie Burgers. Veggie meats can be tricky to get right - overcook them and they turn out tough. Morning Star burgers are frozen so I selected the Snowflake icon to defrost the burger while cooking. I chose the Burger function and waited for pre-heating before popping in the burgers. There was a thickness test followed by grilling to “Rare” then “Medium”.

I wasn’t sure if the burgers would turn out alright as the packet instructions say to barbecue for 8 mins, flipping halfway. It took about 3mins for the burgers to grill both sides to Medium - and the results were great, tasty and cooked through. I would try the Searing function with burgers next time.

Pros of OGE

- Easy to use: just follow the instructions and icons on the small square LCD screen, push the arrows and a few beeps later, voila! - Easy to clean: the grilling plates and drip tray can go into the dishwasher and the machine itself can be wiped clean. - The pre-heating time takes around 5mins, but after that, grilling is quick (compared to using a barbecue or pan frying) because both top and bottom are grilled simultaneously. - Minimal monitoring required compared to grilling over a barbecue or stovetop. This frees you to prepare salads, get drinks - or properly entertain your guests. - The grill stripes make your meal appetising. Food will smoke in the OGE too, depending on the heat, which to me, makes the grills more appealing. - The ability to grill three different beef steaks in three different ways at the same time. This is a really handy function for dinner guests or big families. The OGE beeps when the steak is cooked “Rare”; leave the meat in there and it will beep for a “Medium” grill, and again for “Well Done”. The beeps are simple, melodic chimes. - Displays how much time is left to the second before your cooking preference is reached. This means you know if you have enough time to go to the bar fridge to fetch a craft beer without your meat overcooking. - Can cook from frozen. Simply press the snowflake icon.

Cons of OGE

- Automatic programs failed with two popular proteins: Chicken and Fish. This is would be forgivable if I was testing say, a juicer, but considering that the OGE is a pricey grilling machine, you would expect it to perform exceptionally with all meats. This means its versatility is limited to beef steaks and a few vegetable side dishes (and possibly paninis). Would try again on Manual mode... or head back to my trusty fry pan. - You cannot grill different types of food simultaneously (see Vegan Yakitori Skewers above). This means that if you wanted salmon and potatoes for dinner, you’d have to grill one first and then the other, while popping the first dish into a warm oven so it doesn’t get cold. - Ingredients not only have to be the same for each cook, but the same thickness. - Inclined grill plates make it hard to position some ingredients without them sliding off. - After you’ve cooked your first ingredient, it prompts you with “Any refill”, which is great - except it may have to pre-heat again, depending on the temperature of the plates. This is strange (and annoying if you’re impatient) as you’d expect the grill to still be warm if you’ve only just taken out the first batch. - If you would like it as a cost-effective barbecue, you can’t really use it in the same circumstance. Typically, barbecues can cater for many guests, with the BBQ King or Queen constantly flipping at the helm. The OGE is much too small for that, unless your guests don’t mind waiting. It can feasibly serve 2 - 3 people at the same time. - The guide book says not to use the OGE outside for safety reasons. This takes away the barbecue “feel”. I don’t see an issue if you use it outside and remember to bring it back to the kitchen. - A short extension cord, probably to stop you from using it outside. However, the short cord inhibited us whilst using it in the kitchen. If you wanted to position the OGE the middle of your dining table to wow your guests teppanyaki-style, you would need an extension cord.

Recommended for: The OGE’s smart technology makes it great for BBQ beginners who find it daunting to perfectly grill a steak to “Rare”, “Medium” or “Well Done”. It is best suited to people living in apartments who don’t have the space for a barbecue. It would also suit couples, preferably who have the same dietary requirements so the same ingredients can be cooked at the same time. Having said that, the OGE is definitely for beef steak lovers. Vegans, vegetarians and white meat eaters can get similar (or better) results with their cooking using a $120 grill pan.

Nifty grilling machine – The Tefal Optigrill Elite is a rather nifty machine, unlike anything else I have ever owned. Once I got over the daunting literature in several languages that came with it and eventually found how to select ‘English’ so I could follow instructions, I found the digital directions quite easy to follow. What I particularly liked was the option to… Read more

have roasting/grilling facilities with minimum heat output, something very valuable when you live in the tropics. The machine is well designed, the heating Tefal plates are easy to remove and any debris easily soaks away in water. I decided to avoid cleaning the heating plates in the dishwasher to ensure longer life for the Tefal coating—my choice!

The automatic thickness sensor is great and so are the pre-programmed selections of cooking results (rare, medium-rare, etc.) If you like your steak, the machine will cook it to perfection just as promised, but it will not improve its taste so meat quality is paramount. I suggest placing steak in foil for a couple of minutes though, once done.

Cooking a full meal of sausages and vegetables took far too long when compared to combined use of frying pans and fan-oven…however the Optigrill came into its own when preparing batches of vegetables for later re-heating. I especially liked the grilled capsicums and eggplants. Capsicum slices tends to skid down and the ridges at the bottom of the sloped heating plate are no match to their slipperiness. Next time I’ll try skipping the oil suggested in the recipe. This machine can be a real bonus for vegetarians who might like to find novel ways to experiment with vegetables. Thumbs up for me!

WOW! Convenience, great results & easy to clean – I love the taste and aroma of grilled foods. But we don’t own a BBQ as I hate the inconvenience of firing up the BBQ and the clean up after. So I was thrilled to receive the Tefal Optigrill Elite to test. And test it we did, thoroughly, from a simple cheese toastie, to steaks, hamburger patties, marinated chicken thighs, chicken satay sticks,… Read more

vegetables, salmon fillets etc etc. It is superb.

The executive summary: 1. Quick to fire up with average pre-heating taking about 5 minutes. 2. Very, very intuitive to operate, plus you get on-screen instructions! 3. Inclined lower plate and large clip on drip tray clips at front of grill to catch excess grease. 4. Very, very easy to clean - excellent non-stick coating, plates clip on and off. 5. Size is great for singles, couples or small families. 6. Automated mode is CONVENIENCE PLUS!!! (Manual mode Is available for control freaks to choose temperature and cooking time.)

Would award 6 stars if: 1. The 2 plates were height adjustable to prevent plates squashing delicate or softer foods. 2. It could be stored upright to save counter space when not in use.

THE DETAILS The grill turned up earlier than expected and was very easy to unbox and set up. Give the 2 grill plates and plastic drip tray a quick wash and dry, clip them in (very easy), plug the unit into the wall electric outlet and it was ready to be tested.

- Good manual The included full colour manual cu m cookbook is appreciated. The instructions & icons were clear and easy to follow, and the included recipes were great as indicative ideas of what you can cook.

- Easy to operate Operating the grill was simple. The first item I tried was a simple cheese toastie with a slice of cheese between 2 standard bread slices. I turned on the grill, and used the < > arrows on either side of the small square screen in the handle to select the icon of a panini from the 12 automated cooking modes and pressed OK to confirm.

- Onscreen instructions on easily readable screen The screen showed “preheating” then instructed “Insert food”. After I inserted my sandwich and closed the grill, it advised that it was “calculating” thickness then advised the cooking time. Although the screen is tiny, it is very legible with big light-coloured text on a dark background - comfortable & readable for those on the wrong side of the half century mark like me.

At each stage of “doneness” it beeped to give me the opportunity to take my food out. If I opted to remain, it advised the cooking time to the next stage. Very helpful as it cut out the guesswork. At the final stage of “doneness” it beeped, instructed me to remove my food and also warned of the risk of overcooking if I didn’t do as told!

- Convenient set and forget grilling The beeps for progressive “doneness” levels is superb for meats like beef and lamb to cater to individual preferences without the guesswork, peeking and prodding, or having to insert meat or temperature probes. Just insert the steaks when prompted and remove as required on beeps! Once the food is removed, there is the option of “refill” to cook another batch - whereupon the grill will preheat for the next lot - or shut down.

Tip: I tried both the “sear” and regular grilling for beef sirloin steaks, definitely go with the “sear”.

Tip: Vegetables like zucchini must be of precise thickness, otherwise the thinner slices that did not have contact with the grill will be underdone.

- Intelligent sensor The sensor is intelligent - proved when I cooked a huge batch of satay chicken, and the advice of cooking time varied up and down, in line with the number of kebabs placed into the grill. And also with the cook from frozen option where it does NOT burn the outside and leave the inside raw.

- Quick, easy clean up As the cooking food is captured between 2 grill plates, I did not have to contend with the splatters generated by pan frying steaks on a cooktop, or when grilling or roasting in an oven.

The grill plates are impressively easy to clean. They are dishwasher safe, but I did not try this as I didn’t have to. After cooking Thai marinated chicken thighs, I stuck the horribly crusted grill plates under the hot tap and looked on in amazement as the black gunk slid off. Yes, slid off! A quick rub with a sponge and a little dish detergent and the grills were as good as new.

The large plastic drip tray also washed out easily with hot water and detergent. I was initially concerned that the plastic might retain a greasy feel as some plastics are wont to. To simplify oil disposal, I placed a folded paper kitchen towel in the tray before reinserting into the front of the grill to soak up any grease for an easy toss out.

Conclusion: I do love this grill and its automated modes for super convenient grilling. However the key attribute that earns it a permanent place on my kitchen counter for everyday cooking is the absolute ease of cleaning.

Easy to use, great results no mess Grill – I do not have grilled meat often because my stove is an old solid plate electric one and they are not easy to get the temperature right also takes ages for any response in adjusting the temperature. So usually end up with either burnt or stewed meat. Also, living in a small flat, there is nowhere for a barbecue. So, I was excited to be given the… Read more

chance to test and review the Tefal OptiGrill Elite. On unpacking the box, I was impressed with the look and feel of the OptiGrill Elite. Its solid, without being too heavy to lift in and out of the cupboard. Having two books, both in multiple languages makes it difficult to find information quickly, a single book in one language would be more practical. Cooking with the Tefal OptiGrill Elite. The OptiGrill Elite is designed for one job only, to GRILL. This is achieved beyond any expectations I had before testing it. I have included examples and results of some of the foods I grilled using the Tefal OptiGrill Elite. It does take some getting used to and may need adjustments to time and temperature to suit individual tastes, size and quantity, but the results, ease of use and lack of mess is well worth it. I tried a couple of small chicken skewers from the butcher, on the chicken setting, first. There was only two and the weight of the lid compressed them, also by the time the program finished and beeped, the chicken was very dry. A learning curve. I had better success with my piece of steak, which I watched carefully and removed at medium. It was almost well done, but again, a smallish piece and only the one. It was tender, juicy and very enjoyable. No splatter and the plates are extremely easy to clean in soapy water. I cooked crispy bacon, which was dry because obviously not cooked in fat, but rather any fat is drained away. However, I enjoyed it like this. I then used the manual setting (180, 5 mins) for my thick slice of egg-soaked bread. French toast, crispy bacon and a drizzle of maple syrup….what’s not to love? Again, no splatter. Steak and vegetable kebabs (2cm cubed steak pieces) cooked perfect using manual mode 190 7mins. Tender, juicy meat cooked but firm vegetables. Lamb chop (beef setting), fat drained away, well browned, beautifully tender inside. Slices of potato brushed with oil then salt and pepper were crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. My chicken and cheese toastie on Turkish bread (panni setting) was the best toastie I have had in a long time. The fillings were warmed through, cheese melted and outside toasted. The small piece of Salmon was cooked beautifully, to my liking. I decided to cook different vegetables, one after the other, then a frozen sausage, followed by a frozen steak, for which I selected both frozen and sear function. The OptiGrill Elite handled this marathon cook without any trouble at all. The sausage was a little dry, again I would check and possibly remove before the end. The steak I did keep an eye on and removed when it was to my liking. I did not clean between foods, which is something I should have done and recommend doing because by the time the steak was cooking there was smoke everywhere! I did wipe it some but was not enough, I should have cleaned the plates between foods. However, the plates were still easy to clean, even with all that food on them. In Summary. The Tefal OptiGrill Elite is a solid, sleek looking, good sized grill that does everything it promises and then some. The automatic settings are extremely useful and free up time usually spent watching and turning food to do other things like prepare the sides or enjoy that after work wine while the meat cooks itself. The option to cook the food from frozen is useful, and the searing function gives the meat that restaurant look. The manual mode allows you to set both the temperature (from 120 to 270 deg. in 10 deg increments), and the timer which gives almost unlimited options for grilling. The removable plates are not heavy and clean very easily using just a cloth in warm soapy water. The outside just needs a wipe over and there are no hidden gutters, nooks and corners like some appliances have where food and fat can hide. If there is some splatter it is just in front, usually occurring when the lid is opened, so no big clean up around is needed. The drip tray is easy to remove and wash, just clicks into place. After a couple of weeks putting it through its paces, I am extremely impressed with the Tefal OptiGrill Elite and have no hesitation in recommending it.