The best cooker I've had in my entire adult life.
5/5
Highly recommended cooker, I've had it almost a week so I can't give long term opinions on the appliance. However I absolutely love this thing, it is the best cooker I have had the pleasure to use for my entire adult life. It performs just like an old cooker that I remember from my childhood and since then everything has been mediocre in comparison.
As for its cooking ability I can't grumble at all, the dedicated grill actually works in the sense that it cooks quickly and through. I say this because many other modern cookers seem to have very weak grills that take ages to cook in my experience.
The ovens are not to be sneered at either, they heat up very quickly and cook food evenly regardless of position on the shelves.
Lastly the gas burners are very good, they burn nicely and the safety feature that cuts off the gas should the flame go out is quite welcome and I imagine this would be a massive benefit if you have curious kids. Again using quality pots and pans makes it a pleasure to cook on.
One word of caution, I would leave this cooker switched on at the wall either at all times or leave it switched on for at least an hour after use. The reason for this is that it has a cooling fan/s that kick in to cool it down. Therefore if you switch it off straight after use the fan will obviously not kick in and I assume this could potentially cause damage to the appliance.
The cooker has an A energy efficiency and it doesn't seem to use a whole lot of energy which is good especially in our current energy climate. If you leave it switched on at the wall all the time it uses little to no energy at all.
I will grant you that the cooker is expensive and could be seen as a negative but after using this for just under a week I can see why they cost so much. Aside from its cooking performance its very well put together and the finish is flawless. I feel like it will last a long time and I can only hope I get 20 years out of it but time will tell.
To close I also like the fact that Belling is a British brand and the cooker at at least put together in Britain. I'm assuming some parts will come from abroad in fact the gas burner rings appear to be made in Italy.
The only real negative that I can give (but won't penalise stars for) is the fact that the warranty is only a year. For something that cost this much and is of this quality I think it would have been nice to see a 5 to 10 year warranty.