Dualit Classic Toaster Review

The Dualit Classic 2 Slice Vario Toaster is a stainless steel toaster which is traditional in appearance, yet has modern performance. It's a rather special toaster in the sense that it's built by hand. It's a toaster that's built to last, with an element with a protective armour plating. As a mechanical toaster, it prides itself on its many easily replaceable components, allowing it to stay in the family for generations. We look at the two slice edition in this review, but Dualit also sell a four and six slice version. There are eight colours available, which are listed in the above table.

Despite its classic exterior, its feature set is much more in-line with modern toasters. It has a defrost setting to gently defrost frozen bread, a removable crumb tray for convenience, the ability to lift toast up for a sneak peek without stopping the cycle, a mechanical countdown timer, a mechanical browning dial, and more. We go into more detail later.

About Dualit

Dualit were formed in 1945. Their products are very much kitchen based, with kettles, toasters, mixers, mini ovens, bread boards, and much more, all being part of their range. Their Classic Range consists of hand made products.

Hand Made

Dualit Classic Toasters are made by hand in the UK, as seen below:

Video

There's a short but informative video on amazon.co.uk of the Classic Toaster and its back story. It shows the amount of work which goes into designing a mechanical toaster.

Specification

The main features are below:

• Mechanical Browning Dial - The toaster is equipped with a mechanical browning dial. It goes from zero to a gentle defrost, all the way up to a more thorough browning.
• Mechanical Countdown Timer - The mechanical timer will countdown until the toast is ready.
• Replaceable Elements - As mentioned above, this toaster is designed to last a long time. It's fitted with repairable and replaceable parts to ensure that it will remain in the family for generations to come.
• Selectable Slots - The toaster gives you the option of which toasting slots to toast on so as not to waste energy.
• Defrost - The defrost function is different to other toasters in the sense that defrost is a setting on the browning dial, and not a separate option.
• Removable Crumb Tray - There's a crumb tray underneath the toaster which can easily be removed for emptying.

View full product specification.

Matching Kettle

Dualit also sell a kettle with the same style and a similar back story. The pair are available as a set on amazon.co.uk.

Summary

All in all, a solid toaster. It's a very durable toaster, with an armoured ProHeat element. It's hand made in the UK and designed with the intention that it will be passed down through the generations. It's very much suited to those with a so called "repair and replace" mentality, with many of the components being mechanical for this purpose.

Its other features include a defrost function, a removable crumb tray and the ability to check on your toast, bagels, tea cakes, etc, without stopping the toasting. We rate the Dualit Classic Toaster 4.5 out of 5 stars.

View all customer reviews, or buy from amazon.co.uk: