Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Here's the description from the the main North American distributor's website:
"An essential kitchen tool for cheese lovers. One-handed operation. Comfortable handle fits nicely in your hand. Adjustable wire for varying thicknesses of cheese - just push the button back and forth. Hand wash. Zinc die cast covered with triple-plated chrome with stainless steel wire and aluminium roller. Superior European design. Replacement wires available."
I include this description because Amazon didn't, and because it lends clues to many of the product's flaws.
This product is pretty to look at, and will look nice on your fancy cheese tray. However, if you actually want to slice cheese, you will find it sorely lacking and very frustrating.
The product weighs in at over half a pound (260 grams, to be exact). This is needlessly heavy, and quickly causes hand fatigue. The weight seems to be more for style than strength. A quality design would have used stainless steel rather than chromed cast zinc, and could have achieved better durability with less weight.
Hand wash? There's no excuse for not being able to wash a cheese slicer in a dishwasher. Maybe they were concerned about discoloration of the aluminum rollers. I washed it once and now see rust on the screws holding the wire. They were obviously too cheap to even use stainless steel screws.
One-handed operation? Who are they kidding? Don't you have to use your other hand to hold the cheese block? I consider this statement as much of a joke as the "superior European design".
Everything about the design is loose--very bad when you're trying to slice cheese. The thickness adjustment is plastic running along a rail with detents. It takes very little force to jump the detents, so no matter how you adjust this it's going to push back once you press it up against your cheese, and there's no way to tighten it down in one spot. There also aren't enough steps for useful cheese thicknesses.
The rollers don't actually roll against the cheese--they're rather hard to turn (even manually) and just drag along the cheese. Also, the roller bar wobbles so that one side cuts thicker than the other if you don't hold it perfectly straight.
Worst of all, the wire is loose--I can easily deflect it 6 mm in the center, which is the entire thickness of a very thick slice of cheese. There isn't any way to tighten the wire--it's bent into fixed posts, and likely requires special tools to rebend it properly. The wire is also extremely thick, probably a bit too thick for cheese. It likely won't break, but a thinner wire could have allowed tightening.
The wire attachment is on the bottom of the frame, not directly in front of the roller. As you slice cheese, the wire leads the roller touching the cheese. This makes the cheese thickness much more sensitive to the angle you're holding the slicer.
Many of these flaws sound like what you'd expect from a worn-out tool, but I ran into this when the product was brand new. I've tried a range of cheese types from semi-soft to semi-hard, and have found them all much harder to slice consistently with this slicer than using a thin knife and an average amount of dexterity.
Save your money to buy something more functional than pretty.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Dalla Piazza Lustro Adjustable Wire Cheese Slicer #D1024
Product Description:
Dalla Piazza Lustro Adjustable Cheese Slicer has 2 slicing pre-sets that are thumb adjustable.
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