Artesa ARTRACLETTE review

What the maker puts in writing

• “What You’ll Get - Artesà Mini Raclette Grill Cheese Individual Set for 2, Iron Cheese Fondue Melter, Metal Rack, Non Stick Pan, Wooden Spatula and 2 Candles”
• “The Ultimate Dinner Party Gadget - Guests will love melting their own gooey cheese, ready to ooze onto bread, meat or potatoes”
• “No Electricity Required - Heated by 2 standard tealights, creating a lovely romantic ambience, and allowing for use anywhere”
• “Non-stick and Easy to Clean - Ideal for creating an indulgent Swiss cheese experience at home”
• “Quality Guaranteed - This mini raclette grill comes in a smart Artesà gift box, complete with a 5 year guarantee”
• Description: “Artesà’s mini cheese melter set lets you experience the popular trend at home, as it expertly melts your cheeses, right there at the table… Simply light the two tealight candles”
• Reference ARTRACLETTE · Catalog: 300 g (10.6 oz), 280 × 180 × 180 mm (11 × 7.09 × 7.09 in)

Five years, and nothing else here publishes a term

“complete with a 5 year guarantee.”

The other nine items on this shelf publish no warranty at all — including the Louis Tellier at $259.99, a commercial half-wheel melter made in France since 1947, and the Swissmar Stelvio at $179.95, whose entire page is two bullets of marketing.

So a $24.95 candle gadget carries the only term on the shelf.

What makes it credible is that there is almost nothing to fail. No motor, no element, no thermostat, no cord. An iron body, a metal rack and a non-stick pan — and the only wear part is the coating.

Which makes five years on the coating the real claim, because a non-stick surface used with a metal utensil fails in months. That is precisely why a wooden spatula is in the box.

The honest reading: the maker expects the iron to outlast the buyer’s interest, and is confident enough about the coating to put a term on it.

And the pattern is worth noticing across this site. On the mini-oven shelf, eight machines publish two warranties: the Breville at $159.95 with one year, and a $24.99 Dash with one year doubling on registration. The cheap end publishing terms and the dear end not recurs.

Two tealights, both included

“Heated by 2 standard tealights… allowing for use anywhere” — and bullet one confirms 2 candles in the box.

Melting cheese needs about 50 to 60 °C at the surface, not a sear. A candle flame reaches several hundred degrees, so two are enough to turn a slice of hard cheese soft and bubbling.

What they cannot do is anything else. No searing, no holding a liter of fondue at a simmer, no running eight pans.

The three candle machines on this shelf differ only in count and content:

this — 2 tealights, included, plus an iron melter, a rack, a non-stick pan and a wooden spatula Swissmar Nordic $21.95 — 3 tealights, not stated as included; one long dish, one spatula, a folding stand Swissmar Tandem $34.95 — 4 tealights, included; a fondue pot, a raclette dish, a spatula and 2 fondue forks

So this is the only candle machine that both includes its candles and names what the body is made of. Which matters: iron holds and spreads heat where thin steel does not, and on a candle-powered melter that is the difference between an evenly molten pan and a hot spot over the flame.

Buy a bag of tealights anyway. A tealight runs three to four hours, so two of them set the length of an evening — a figure no page on this shelf publishes.

And “no electricity” is the real separation on this shelf. The electric machines publish 1800 W (ARLIME at $74.99 — which is 15 amperes at 120 volts, a full domestic circuit) and 1500 W (GIVENEU at $109.99). The ARLIME also publishes a 2.5 ft cord, which is thirty inches and the only cord length on the shelf. None of them works on a patio without an extension lead. This does.

The wooden spatula, which is not a detail

Molten cheese does not pour. It has to be scraped — which is where the word raclette comes from, the French for scrape.

And scraping is exactly the motion that destroys a non-stick coating. A steel edge dragged across a coated surface under pressure takes a line out of it every time; once the coating is broken, cheese sticks there permanently and the break spreads.

A wooden tool cannot do that.

All three candle machines here supply one — this a wooden spatula, the Nordic a “heat-resistant spatula”, the Tandem a “raclette spatula” — and the electric machines do it in bulk: the GIVENEU supplies 8 wooden spatulas with its 8 non-stick mini pans.

The ARLIME adds a different practical thought on the same theme: its “fork handles are marked in different colors for easy identification” — which solves whose fork is whose at a table of eight.

The rule across this shelf: the tool that touches the pan is never metal.

Two people, where four machines here serve eight

“Individual Set for 2”, in the title.

The shelf:

GIVENEU $109.99, ARLIME $74.99, Hamilton Beach $83.95, Swissmar Stelvio $179.95 — 8 people Louis Tellier $259.99 — “a table of 6 to 8 guests” Swissmar Tandem $34.95 — 2 fondue forks, so two this — 2, stated Swissmar Nordic $21.95 — not published; one long dish, so one or two

Which makes this the only item on the shelf explicitly built for two, and the description is honest about what that is for: a tabletop set, “right there at the table”, with “a lovely romantic ambience” from the candles.

And at 300 grams it is the lightest thing here — against 422 g (Nordic), 710 g (Tandem), 3152 g (Hamilton Beach), 5321 g (GIVENEU), 5443 g (ARLIME) and 7938 g (Stelvio).

That ratio is the real argument for the candle end of this shelf. A raclette grill is used a handful of times a year, and the rest of the time it is stored. An eight-kilo appliance takes a shelf; a 300-gram set in a gift box takes a drawer.

The gift box is the other half of the same point. Of the ten items here, this is the only one packaged as a present — which for an occasional-use object is a sensible thing to be.

What the title gets slightly wrong

“Iron Cheese Fondue Melter.”

This is a raclette pan, not a fondue pot. The distinction matters and the shelf divides on it:

Fondue is a shared pot of melted cheese that guests dip into with long forks. Raclette is cheese melted in a small pan and scraped onto your own plate over potatoes, bread or meat.

Five items on this shelf have a genuine fondue pot: the GIVENEU (a 600 ml stainless steel bowl with its own thermostat), the ARLIME (a 304 stainless steel pot with independent control), the Swissmar Tandem (a fondue pot and 2 fondue forks), and the two Swissmar porcelain plate items, which are tableware for either.

Five do not: this, the Swissmar Nordic, the Hamilton Beach — which despite sitting on a raclette-and-fondue shelf has no pot at all, only a grill and 8 warming trays — the Stelvio, and the Louis Tellier.

So read “fondue melter” here as loose wording. What you get, by bullet one, is a non-stick pan on a metal rack over two candles, with a spatula: the raclette arrangement, and a good one.

“Ready to ooze onto bread, meat or potatoes” in bullet two is the correct description of the method — and the traditional accompaniment, which the Swissmar Nordic page names as “boiled potatoes and bread (the truly Swiss experience)”.

What is not published

No dishwasher statement, where the Nordic’s dish, the GIVENEU’s entire kit and the Hamilton Beach’s plate and trays are all stated dishwasher safe. On an iron body that is probably deliberate — cast iron and a dishwasher do not agree — but the page does not say, and the non-stick pan is the part you would want to put in.

No burn time, as above.

No dimensions beyond a catalog carton of 280 × 180 × 180 mm, so how much cheese the pan holds is unknown.

No iron treatment. Bare iron rusts; seasoned or enamelled iron does not. On a part washed after every use, which it is matters — and only “Iron” is stated.

Its five bullets are printed a second time as a sixth, run together with pipe characters. A data artefact rather than a claim, and harmless — though this shelf has worse: the Swissmar round porcelain plate at $55.96 publishes four bullets that read “High-quality material”, “High-quality dimensions”, “robustness”, “Flexible design”, which is four bullets and no information. And “high-quality dimensions” is not a thing — a measurement is right or wrong.

No fondue forks, which the Swissmar Tandem includes two of and the GIVENEU eight.

Availability

Read on the day this page was built: $25 at the American Amazon shop.

Read from Keepa on the day this page was last revised; stock and price both move without notice.