I purchased a wolf dual fuel 48" 9 months ago and after several service calls, Wolf did a buy back on the range. It was kind of strange, I would have been ok with another range but they did not want to switch it out. They were very nice, tried to service it but never really looks at the internals, instead would send a chef out here to cook in it and troubleshoot it. My issue was mainly the convection. Cook on one rack, no issues, cook on all of them like cookies and extremely uneven cooking from top to bottom and back to front. Not satisfied. Hated the lack of rolling racks, I find the racks hard to pull out. Had the double griddle. Fantastic to cook on but the grease catcher does not catch grease, instead it fills up, overflows underneath and makes quite the mess, even when the catcher is not full....they even mentioned that it is a design flaw. The actual service help after was good in most respects, would I buy another wolf? maybe some day, but not that range for sure. Also, took forever to heat up and boiling a pot of water took too long for such a beautiful unit. I am now purchasing a capital culinarian...hoping for much better results.....

I think everyone who has considered the Culinarian has had the same concerns. Many have taken steps to see the range in person and, in some cases, meet and talk to the head of Capital. I may be speaking out of turn but I'd wager a large percentage of people who are serious buyers that has seen a Culinarian in person has been impressed and had their concerns put at ease. Trevor is being a bit modest I think in saying he had a small part in bringing this range to market. My read is that Surjit is a very conservative individual which is a very good thing for someone in his position. I think Trevor has done a lot to balance that with more aggressive marketing to the early adopter market. The combination is a good one and I think drives innovation tempered with caution. Surjit seemed pretty confident in a September delivery and reluctantly said maybe early in the month. In the end, I think transparency is a very good thing. We, the consumers, get to have a level of input that we never get otherwise. Capital, the manufacturer, gets early feedback that results in a much better (i.e. sellable) product right off the line. Only you can decide if you want to be one of these early adopters. I can only repeat what I've said many times before. I was very skeptical at first but after seeing the range in person and meeting Surjit, I'm convinced that this will be a quality product right out of the gate. Will you be disappointed with Wolf or GE Monogram? Only you can answer that and only after you make your decision. If you want open burners but settle with sealed, I think chances of you regretting your purchase is reasonably high. Good luck.

Working regularly on the Wolf open and sealed burner rangetops, I've encountered a variety of cleaning "situations". First, as ZMMN mentioned, the griddle is unbelievably easy to "clean". The key is not to strip the seasoning off. The seasoning, much like a cast iron skillet, is what makes the surface resilient to sticking and easy to cook on. Simply scrape with a dough cutter (a few bucks from L&T or rest. supply) and steam with a wet paper towel while the griddle is still hot. Maybe 2 times a year I'll strip it down some, but with the stainless cover or optional butcher block insert you really don't need to make it "shiney". Side note, the sealed is a little cleaner because the trip tray is top side and can be taken out to clean. On the other hand, the open burner griddle can get residue in the corners of the drip area. Next, the Wolf "open" is actually semi-sealed so you won't have much drop down (except with the griddle). I think that makes it easier to clean for food spills. Conversely, with the single burner cap on the sealed rangetop, I think this unit does better with liquid boil-overs. Either way, if you'll wipe off the residue and then rinse or quick wash it before cooking on it again you'll be in good shape.

@Amy Cantu We've been in our house for 6 mo now and I really like the GE Monogram oven. I haven't actually used the speed oven functionality of the speed oven. Just the microwave. And even then, we just use the add 30 sec option. I need to sit down with the manual and experiment with it. Unfortunately, using the speed oven is not as simple as just turning it on. It's pretty complex. I remember when I tried the speed oven at my friend's house it was really hard, and I thought I'd need to dedicate some serious experimentation to getting it to work for me, and doubted that I would ever bother using it as an oven except for Thanksgiving, which hasn't happened yet. My motivation to learn how to use it has been even less than I expected, so I'm sorry to say I can't report back. I also haven't tried using the oven probe functionality for the oven (haven't cooked a roast yet). Need to find the oven probe along with the speed oven manual! But I have done a ton of baking and roasting of vegetables and have been pleased. We were living in a rental house with a viking range and the GE monogram oven is 1000x better than whatever model of viking oven came with the range in the rental. Much more even. I've done two cakes side by side and they came out beautifully without the need to rotate. With a sheet of cookies I notice that sometimes a corner might brown a little quicker than another corner, but not so much that I really need to worry about rotating the pan halfway through. Broiler also works great--I've been making a lot of toast to go with steak tartare and an entire pan filled with toast toast 100% evenly under the broiler--hooray!