Dualit Architect 4 Slot Toaster review

With the Architect, Dualit tries its hand at the traditional pop-up toaster. As you’d expect the design is pretty stylish, in a chunky, no nonsense kind of way. If you want to soften the look, you can remove the metal side panels and replace them with coloured plastic alternatives – like a nineties Nokia mobile. There are three fascia options, all fairly garish, but someone might have a kitchen to match or complement them we suppose.

As is usual on a four-slice toaster, the controls are split into two, with each set controlling a pair of slots. The controls themselves are sparse but pleasingly chunky. Big knobs that turn smoothly, click as they rotate and light up when you’re toasting. In the middle of each knob is the clearly labelled eject button. Below are buttons to extend the normal toasting time for frozen bread and a bagel setting – which then only toasts one side of each slice.

It’s all very smart-looking and intuitive with big clear icons. Unusually there’s no reheat button here though, we’re not big fans of reheated toast admittedly (it’s usually dry and inedible) but it’s also useful for giving a round of toast an extra blast without having to worry about it getting totally incinerated.

So far then a fairly typical pop-up toaster, but Dualit has brought something special from its marquee, catering-quality line up. During toasting you can lift the handle on the Architect and have a quick peek at the toast in progress, without pressing the eject button and cancelling the current timer. It’s a brilliant feature for those who like to lurk by the toaster and get every slice done to a turn.

The slots themselves are longer than most, which allows typical sliced loaf fare to just about be laid down sideways, ensuring complete coverage and no untoasted top edges. However, should your normal slice be any larger than this then the Architect isn’t very deep and you’ll get a substantial untoasted segment at the top – see our test slice that we toasted upright for consistency. The heating elements are more closely spaced than on most toasters we’ve seen, but they’re not protected by a transparent sheet as on the classic Dualit.

Those closer spaced elements were evident in toasting. We test with thick-cut Hovis sliced white bread and the results were good, with a nice even toasting across each side. The resulting toast was delicious, crisp on the outside and still moist in the middle. This is partly because the Architect works quickly (unlike some we know), producing toast to our liking in just one minute 44 seconds, the fastest time we’ve seen. However, it’s power-hungry too, eating up 0.043kWh for each slice or pair of slices.

Getting toast out wasn’t a problem, but even our fairly tall test slices only protruded by 50mm and there’s no additional lift provided on the handles. Lying our test bread down sideways reduced the grabbable area to just 10mm, which is too little for our liking; meanwhile a crumpet barely peaked above the slot.

Cleaning up is fairly straightforward, with slots that are completely open at the bottom, allowing the crumbs to fall freely onto the tray. This then slides out of the back of the toaster, not unusual but it does mean you won’t clean it out too often. As with all crumb trays we’ve seen, we wish this one was deeper, so it could handle an errant chunk of crust without getting jammed.

The Dualit Architect is a worthy stab by the venerable company at a pop-up design. The styling is great, but we’re a little upset that Dualit hasn’t used the same protected Proheat elements hear as it does in its classic designs. The Architect is considerably cheaper than those models, but at £100 it’s still pricier than the vast majority of pop-up toasters available.

is it worth the money then? We love the long slots, the even toasting, the speed and the lift-and-peek feature. It could do with more lift and for those who really like crumpets it’s one to avoid, plus if you do a lot of single slices it’s not the most even-sided toaster. All that said, it’s still a good buy if the look appeals to you, but toasters half the price are practically as good and it doesn’t fully live up to the name on the box.