Product Review: Mini-Review of All-Clad Portable Induction Cooker (Countertop Burner)

This is not going to be a full product review, because this product is out of production, so it’s unlikely you will ever have the misfortune of buying one of these like I did.

The All Clad Electric Induction Burner is made in China for All-Clad. It is also one of the most overpriced portable induction cookers in existence.

It’s not a bad induction cooker. It has all the usual safety features like auto-shutoff in case of overheating, and it’s built big and roomy, with a quiet fan, which gives it a reassuring vibe of durability.

However, you get no real performance benefit over other induction cookers! You get the same four-inch diameter circular hotspot.

Furthermore, though the cooker has 10 heat settings, the dial is not what you’d expect. It looks like an analog radio or TV dial, but in reality it’s just a spring-loaded clicker. That’s right: you rotate it left or right, and it clicks back to the middle where you have to repeat the process, multiple times, to go up or down the heat spectrum quickly. This isn’t any faster than designs which force you to push buttons to increment heating levels one by one, and it defeats one of the purposes of induction, which is to have nearly-instantaneous control of heat.

Lastly, it does not work with Demeyere Atlantis or Proline skillets, or anything else with the “TriplInduc” branding by Demeyere, even though every other induction cooker I’ve ever tried has worked with Demeyere.

All-Clad somehow thought this product would sell at $800 list price. It would not sell at half that and was discontinued since it did not outperform cookers selling at $80. Even at the $250 mark, the product would be a failure, considering that you can get the Vollrath 59300 Mirage Electric Countertop Cadet Induction Range, 12-Inch, which has TWENTY temperature control settings, a timer, and temperature-stay settings. It might not last as long as the All-Clad if the All-Clad’s guts are as rugged as its exterior, but at least the Vollrath Mirage Cadet would be a lot more useful while it lasted.

The “replacement” to this cooker is the All-Clad TG806C51 Stainless Steel Removable Plate Electric Grill/Griddle, Silver. It’s a non-induction electric griddle that doesn’t have the greatest reviews, either, and is similarly overpriced. I’m not even going to bother trying it out. All-Clad USA-made cookware may be good, but I’d take a pass on anything they make with a plug on it, especially since they don’t make it in the USA but likely contract with some Chinese company to mass-produce it for them.