Eight pans, six seats, and one cable · review
A French half-wheel raclette melter with a rack-and-pinion heating ramp, for 6 to 8 guests.
The net of it The only machine here that does raclette the way the dish was invented — a suspended half wheel under a heating ramp that winds down on a rack and pinion to follow the cheese as the portion recedes. Made in France, two hundred and sixty dollars, and no wattage published.
The Hamilton Beach page, alone on this shelf, explains what raclette is: “A centuries old Swiss meal, and the name of the cheese used to make it. Raclette was traditionally prepared over a fire and is now more commonly prepared with the help of specialized electric grills.”
This is the machine that still does it the first way. A half wheel presented cut-face to the heat, melted, and scraped onto the plate — racler is the French for scrape, and that is where the whole dish gets its name.
Everything else on this shelf is the modern simplification: instead of one wheel melted by one person, eight people each melt a slice in their own tray. The GIVENEU at $109.99 with 8 non-stick mini pans, the Hamilton Beach at $83.95 with 8 warming trays, the ARLIME at $74.99 with “removable mini grill pans”, the three candle dishes with one or two pans over tealights.
This is the only item here with a moving part, and the only one that is sold for commercial as well as domestic use.
And it is the only one with no grill. No plate, no stone, no griddle, no crepe top. It melts cheese, and that is the entirety of it — where the ARLIME and the GIVENEU also grill meat and hold a fondue, and the Swissmar Stelvio at $179.95 supplies a granite stone and a reversible plate.
So the comparison is not like for like. At $259.99 this is the most expensive item on the shelf and does the least, in the sense of functions — and does the one thing in the way the dish was invented.
“adjusted in height using a rack-and-pinion system with a maneuvering knob… and move closer as the portion decreases.”
What happens at the table. You present the cut face to the heat. The surface softens, you scrape the melted layer onto a plate, and the face is now a few millimeters further away. Twenty scrapes over an evening and it has receded by centimeters — and heat falls off with distance, so an element that was melting cheese in two minutes is now barely warming it.
The ramp winds down to close the gap.
A rack and pinion is the correct mechanism for it, and the choice is not cosmetic. It is positive: a toothed rack driven by a gear, so the ramp stays exactly where the knob leaves it. A friction slide would creep — downwards, under its own weight, onto the cheese, next to a hot element.
And the same adjustment covers the other variable, which the bullet names first: cheese size. A half wheel of raclette runs roughly 28 to 35 centimeters across depending on the dairy, so the starting gap is never the same twice.
The ramp is horizontal, which matters for the dish: the cut face is a circle and the element is a bar, so the heat is applied in a band across the face rather than at a point. You scrape a band, lower the ramp, and scrape the next.
What is not published is the travel — how far the ramp moves, top to bottom. That is the figure that says how much of a wheel the machine can see out, and on the one feature this product is built around it is missing.
“heat it continuously for on-demand serving.”
On a tray machine the meal has a rhythm. Eight slices go into eight pans, everybody waits two or three minutes, everybody eats at once. The round is the unit of the meal, and the table eats in lockstep.
Here the face is always molten. Somebody wanting more scrapes, and nobody waits for anybody.
That is why bullet one says commercial use, and it is the honest reason a restaurant buys this shape: service does not have to be synchronized with a cooking cycle.
At a table of 6 to 8 the practical effect is that one person does the scraping for everybody — which is how raclette was eaten before table grills existed, and is either the charm of it or the drawback depending on who you are.
It is also the smallest headcount on the shelf. Every electric grill here claims 8: the Hamilton Beach “up to 8 people” with 200 square inches, the GIVENEU “up to 8 guests”, the ARLIME 8, the Stelvio “8-Person”. This says 6 to 8 — and that is a function of how fast one cut face can be scraped, not of how much cheese it holds.
The cost is that the cheese is heated the whole time, where a tray machine only heats what is in the trays. No wattage is published here, so the running cost cannot be compared with the 1800 W ARLIME or the 1500 W GIVENEU.
This is a vertical machine on a shelf of flat ones.
Heights: Swissmar Stelvio 127 mm · GIVENEU 152 mm · Hamilton Beach 181 mm · this 400 mm.
Four hundred millimeters is sixteen inches — the cheese has to be held up where a ramp can be lowered onto it, so the height is structural rather than styling.
At a raclette table everyone must see each other over the appliance for an hour, and this one stands at roughly head height for a seated guest. The Stelvio’s five inches is the opposite choice.
The footprint compensates, and bullet three makes the claim: “Compact… it takes up little space once stored.” 460 × 265 mm is the narrowest machine here — the Stelvio is 419 × 495, the GIVENEU 406 × 406, the Hamilton Beach 394 × 419. Twenty-six centimeters deep is a narrow strip of table, and it stores on its end rather than flat.
Which is the trade in one line: it occupies the air above the table instead of the surface of it.
And no weight is published — the only item on this shelf without one. For reference: Hamilton Beach 3152 g · GIVENEU 5321 g · ARLIME 5443 g · Swissmar Stelvio 7938 g · the candle dishes 300, 422 and 710 g. On a tall machine carrying a heavy wheel of cheese on a cantilever, the base mass is what keeps it upright, and it is absent.
“made in France with our unique craftsmanship” · “Since 1947, Louis Tellier has been manufacturing durable and easy-to-use professional kitchen utensils in France”
This is the only item on the shelf with a country of manufacture. Not the Stelvio at $179.95, not the GIVENEU, not the ARLIME, not the Hamilton Beach, none of the Swissmar porcelain.
And the only one with a founding date. Seventy-nine years of making professional kitchen tools is the substance behind “commercial and home use”, and a professional tool is a different object from a party appliance: serviceable, bolted rather than clipped, built around one mechanism that is expected to work for years.
The rack and pinion is consistent with that. It is the expensive way to make an adjustment, chosen because it does not drift.
But durability is asserted and not warranted. The word “durable” appears and no term does — and the only published warranty on this shelf is the Artesà’s 5 year guarantee, on a $24.95 candle dish. Nine of ten items here, this one included, publish none.
“Easy to clean” is the other asserted claim, in bullet three, with nothing behind it. No part is named as removable, and nothing is said to be dishwasher safe — where the GIVENEU names its bowl, forks, pans and plate individually and the Hamilton Beach says plate, trays and accessories are all dishwasher safe. Melted cheese that has run down a heating ramp and set is the worst washing-up this shelf can produce, and the claim is two words long.
The one habit worth adding: wipe it while it is still warm. Set raclette cools to a rubber.
A half wheel of raclette cheese.
A full wheel runs around 5 to 7 kilograms, so a half wheel is several kilograms — a substantial, perishable purchase, and not stocked everywhere.
No capacity is published. Not a diameter, not a weight range, not a minimum portion the mount will still grip once the wheel is half gone. On a machine built around one specific format, the format is missing — and the bullet concedes the variation itself by making the ramp fit “the selected cheese size”.
Everything else on this shelf eats slices. A supermarket pack of sliced raclette feeds the GIVENEU’s 8 mini pans, the Hamilton Beach’s 8 trays or the $21.95 Nordic’s single dish over 3 tealights.
And the cheese is worth naming, because it is the one variable no machine controls: raclette is a semi-hard Swiss cow’s-milk cheese bred to melt without separating. Substituting a cheddar gives a greasy pool rather than a scrape, on any machine here.
No wattage. “110V” is a voltage, not a power. The ARLIME publishes 1800 W — 15 amperes, a full American circuit — and the GIVENEU 1500 W. On a machine that heats continuously, the power is the running cost, and it is absent.
No weight, as above, and uniquely on this shelf.
No cheese capacity, as above.
No ramp travel, on the one feature the product exists for.
No temperature control. Bullet two adjusts height, which is how this machine controls heat — closer is hotter. There is no thermostat mentioned, where the GIVENEU publishes “dual independent thermostats” and the ARLIME “independent controls”. Melting cheese wants 50 to 60 °C and splits above it, and here the only dial is the knob that moves the bar.
No timer and no auto shutoff, which nothing on this shelf has. Only the Hamilton Beach has an indicator light, and its page says why: “a reminder to turn it off when you’re finished cooking.” On a machine with no timer, unplug it rather than switching it off — and on one that heats continuously, that matters more here than anywhere else on the shelf.
No cord length. The ARLIME’s 2.5 ft is the only one published on this shelf, and thirty inches is the figure that decides whether a table appliance reaches a table. “US Cord” in the name confirms the plug and not the reach.
No cleaning detail, as above.
No warranty, as above.
Read on the day this page was built: $260 at the American Amazon shop.
Read from Keepa on the day this page was last revised; stock and price both move without notice.
Prices quoted in this text were read on 2026-10-05. The live price is at the top of the page.
Same shelf, nearest cost — where the same money else goes.
| Format | A suspended half wheel of cheese, melted and scraped — the original method |
|---|---|
| Heating ramp | Horizontal, height-adjustable by rack and pinion with a knob |
| Follows the cheese | The ramp moves closer as the portion recedes |
| Heats continuously | For serving on demand rather than in rounds |
| Serves | 6 to 8 guests |
| Supply | 110 V, with a US cord |
| Made in | France |
| Maker since | 1947 |
| Use | Commercial and domestic |
| Height | 400 mm (15.7 in) — three times the height of any grill on this shelf |
| Footprint | 460 × 265 mm (18.1 × 10.4 in), the narrowest machine here |
| Reference | RACL02 — sold as the Alpage |
| Wattage | Not published; only 110 V is given |
| Weight | Not published — the only item on this shelf with no weight |
| Amazon reference | B0BYFT7DD3 |
| EAN | 3700265018853 |
Because the cheese retreats as you scrape it, and this is the mechanism the whole machine exists for. Bullet two: "The horizontal heating ramp can be adjusted in height using a rack-and-pinion system with a maneuvering knob to fit the selected cheese size and move closer as the portion decreases." What actually happens at the table. You cut a wheel of raclette in half and present the cut face to the heat. The surface softens, you scrape the melted layer onto a plate, and the face is now a few millimeters further away. Do that twenty times over an evening and the face has receded by centimeters — and heat falls off with distance, so the same element that was melting the cheese in two minutes is now barely warming it. The ramp winds down to close the gap. A rack and pinion is the right mechanism for it, because it is positive: a toothed rack and a gear, so the ramp sits exactly where the knob leaves it and cannot creep down onto the cheese under its own weight. A friction slide would. And the same adjustment handles the other variable, which the bullet names first: cheese size. A half wheel of raclette is roughly 28 to 35 centimeters across depending on the dairy, so the starting gap is never the same twice. Nothing else on this shelf has a moving part at all. Every grill here is a fixed plate at a fixed height, melting a fixed slice in a tray.
It turns raclette from rounds into a service, and it is the real difference between this and every grill on the shelf. Bullet one: "...heat it continuously for on-demand serving." On a tray machine the meal has a rhythm. Eight people put a slice of cheese in eight small pans, the pans go under the element, everybody waits two or three minutes, and then everybody eats at once. The GIVENEU at $109.99 supplies 8 mini pans for exactly this; the Hamilton Beach at $83.95 supplies 8 warming trays; the candle dishes do one or two at a time over tealights. The round is the unit of the meal, and the table eats in lockstep. Here the cheese is always molten at the face. Somebody wanting more walks up — or reaches across — and scrapes, and nobody waits for anybody. That is why the page says commercial use, and it is the honest reason a restaurant buys this shape: service does not have to be synchronized with a cooking cycle. At a table of 6 to 8, the practical effect is that one person tends to do the scraping for everybody, which is how raclette was eaten before table grills existed. The cost is that the cheese is being heated the whole time, where a tray machine only heats what is in the trays. Nothing here publishes a wattage, so the running cost cannot be compared.
A half wheel of raclette cheese, and the page does not mention it. A full wheel of raclette is around 5 to 7 kilograms; a half wheel is therefore several kilograms of cheese, which is a substantial and perishable purchase and not something sold in every shop. Nothing on this page states a capacity — not a diameter, not a weight range, not a minimum portion the clamp will still hold. Which is the gap that matters most, because a machine built around one specific format should tell you the format: a half wheel is roughly 28 to 35 centimeters across depending on the dairy, and the bullet concedes the variation by making the ramp adjust to "the selected cheese size". Compare the rest of the shelf, where the cheese is a slice. The tray machines take whatever you cut off a block: the GIVENEU with 8 non-stick mini pans, the Hamilton Beach with 8 warming trays, the Swissmar Nordic at $21.95 with a single dish over 3 tealights. A supermarket pack of sliced raclette feeds any of them. And the cheese itself is worth naming. Raclette is a semi-hard Swiss cow’s-milk cheese bred to melt without separating — the Hamilton Beach page is the only one here to say so: "A centuries old Swiss meal, and the name of the cheese used to make it." Substituting a cheddar gives a greasy pool rather than a scrape, on any machine on this shelf.
Details checked on October 5, 2026.
A household or a small restaurant serving raclette from the wheel, continuously, to six or eight
Specifications: the manufacturer sheet for kitchen appliances and the matching Amazon product page. Prices and availability: Keepa. Every figure on this page names its source.
8 seats · 1,300 W · stepless dial
Eight non-stick pans and four wooden spatulas, 1,300 W, with a side dial giving stepless temperature over the plate and the pans together. The non-stick grill plate lifts off and HengBO states it fits in the sink; the maker also states low smoke and odor for indoor use.
Best for: Eight people around a table, in a flat where smoke matters.
12 seats · 1,650 W · 3 plates + fondue
Fonduelette XL: raclette, grill and fondue in one, for up to twelve people, at 1,650 W across three separate stainless heating elements. Three interchangeable tops — metal, natural stone and a crêpe plate — twelve raclette pans, and a lid that holds the fondue forks upright.
Best for: A long table at Christmas, where raclette, grilling and fondue all happen at once.
2–6 people · Ø 30 cm (11.8 in) stone plate
A compact raclette and grill for two to six people, built around a round natural stone plate of 30 cm (11.8 in). Princess publishes something rare in this family: a cleaning routine per component, a stated preheat of about ten minutes, an instruction not to use metal utensils, and color-coded pans so people keep their own.
Best for: Two to six at a small table, and a plate that will not lose its coating because it has none.
