I have a 1990 Cornue Grand Palais series range that I purchased used. I disassembled the unit completely for a thorough cleaning and I have some observations that may be of use to some of you. First the bad. The plating work on the trim (nickel in my case), is pretty bad. I took the pieces to a plating shop to be reworked, and the staff were not impressed. You can see that most of the pieces were finished with a belt sander. Because the base metal of the pieces is steel, over time, the backs of the pieces where they contact the stove enamel will begin to rust because of trapped moisture. This destroys the plating, and eventually works around to the front of the trim. The screws for the backs of the drawer slides were loose or missing, and the right side door slides had the back mounting holes drilled 1/2 inch too high, causing that door to be mis-aligned and to have a tendency to slide open. The body of the drawers is galvanized steel. One of mine had significant rust. There must be condensation issues. The gas piping was not deburred after being cut. Two pieces were cut too short, so the builder wasn't able to adequately tighten the joints. There were a few missing screws in the unit and one missing bolt. The right hand base was 1/8" too short, so they added shims between the base and the oven unit. Unfortunately the shims they added were only 1/16" high. An electrical connection on one of the main electric burner elements was never tightened correctly. There was obvious arcing at that point. There are no gaskets on the oven doors. This means that hot gasses will escape out the front and you will get deposits inside the upper door frame and front of the unit, where they will collect under the drip tray handles. There is no easy way to replace the chrome oven surrounds if they become damaged. You must COMPLETELY disassemble the unit, including removing/dismantling the controls (electric or gas) behind the control doors. This requires that the gas piping be disconnected, the top removed, the ovens separated, the sides removed, and then the inner sheet metal.. you get the idea. The knobs have plastic bushings to adapt to the small control stalks. One of mine distorted from the heat, so the knob doesn't stay square. Like many other "pro" ranges, there are many spots where panels meet in such a way that it is inevitable that fluids will seep in and cause problems. The chrome panels fronting the oven are typical, cleaning products just dribble straight down into an uncleanable gap. The cast aluminum door panels are very cool when perfectly buffed out, but inevitably, they will wither away with use. Sooner or later someone will use a cleaner incompatible with aluminum and wreck the finish. It has taken me several hours on a bench buffer to bring them back. The hinges in the door have a weak point: when you open the door all the way and put any pressure down, there is a small piece of metal in each hinge that is stressed. One of mine has a small crack that I will have to weld if I can't find a replacement. The venting in the back of the unit is poorly done. The vents terminate before the top of the backsplash, so cooking gases sort of spread out and coat the upper third of the unit. Not a major problem, but causes quite a bit of dirt buildup. The brass burner tops look great when polished, but that doesn't last long unless you are a fanatic about cleaning. I didn't even know they were brass until I saw it on a website. I polished mine on the buffer and hey look! brass! Unfortunately, they get pitted, so to really make them look great, you'd have to chuck them in a lathe and remove some metal. This would give them a limited lifetime. The racks are a bit flimsy. The chrome on mine had started to fail. The transformer for the spark ignitors was only grounded to the base of one unit. If you are having a problem with ignitors, make a pigtail to directly attach the ground wire from the transformer to one of the oven's base mounting screws. People are always saying that their high-end stoves are "built like tanks". No they aren't. Sure, with all that metal you need a stiff frame to bolt it all to, but individually, the ovens are pretty conventional. I've seen the same on Wolf commercial. You want heavy duty? Buy an 1895 wood burner. Ok, so now the good: The brass burner hardware is the neatest I have ever seen: a brass tube with a threaded adjuster sets the air flow, much nicer than the stamped metal shutters on Wolf commercial and others. The gas knobs are cast metal, plated. The have a nice heavy feel. The gas control hardware looks quality. All the wiring is sleeved with high temp silicone. Durable and looks nice. Mine was still in great shape. The porcelain held up very well with only a couple hardly visible dings. The electric controls are heavy duty euro style stuff. They must have stiffer regs over there. The electric switches are industrial quality. With some serious cleaning, I was able to take this 18+ year old range back to almost new condition. I paid $2k for the unit, and I am satisfied with it at that price. From what I can see looking at the new units at Williams-Sonoma, there is little visual difference with my unit, so I believe some of my comments would still apply. The bottom line here is, the cooking functions of the unit seem to be just fine, and have held up well over time. However, the range is not as easy to clean and maintain as a modern unit, and the build quality leaves much to be desired. The style fits perfectly with the kitchen of my Victorian, so I am willing to make some compromises in function. To any prospective buyers, I would say that just about any $1000 range from Sears will do a great job of cooking, operate reliably and be easy to clean and cheap (relatively) to service. Cornue makes their ranges "like they used to", but sometimes there's a good reason why they don't make them like that anymore. A purchase like this is about style. If you need a unit with two ovens, and (like mine), four burners, a flat cooktop and grill, the price of entry will probably be at least $5k. How you justify the extra $35k is all about style.

We've had ours for 7 years now (pic way up above) and I do love it. HOWEVER... one side of our oven broke in September (the convection element needs to be replaced), and the part to replace it still has not come in - 4 months later we are still waiting. The warranty is 5 years, so we are out of luck with La Cornue working with us and have to rely on our local retail establishment for service work. The oven sizes are fine, unless you plan on doing a giant turkey. We've done an 18 lb turkey no problem, and I love doing roasters in it. Cleaning - the ovens have sides - top and bottom as well - that remove for cleaning so it's not a complete nightmare. But if you are used to self-cleaning ovens you may not like it. All that being said, we are overall happy with it. But if we ever need another oven, I doubt I would go with the same brand only because service has been very difficult. Good luck!

Joe, thanks for the explanation. That makes a lot of sense. This was a full on La Cornue display, with a wall of cabinets and the rotisserie and everything. I'm guessing from what I remember, and what you've said, that it was a Chateau or two, with some cabinetry on the ends with the Gaggenau drop ins, and a plate rail around the whole thing. I just remember being struck by the combination of oldy old old looks/function (domed ovens, standard gas burners, plaque) with newy new new of the Varios, old timey looks of the banded doors, and that massive rotisserie in the middle playing the part of the elevated hearth. (I wonder how much grease that rotisserie spits? Does it have a built in extractor? It says something about an optional flue but I don't know what that entails.) Building, 'tis true. With a range, you'd have to bend. And you wouldn't have the combi-steam. Good point about the looks of the table and cabinet for a studio apartment, but the issue is then where do you eat? If you've just cooked on the table, it'll be hot. I suppose you could have a board to cover it... And, of course, you'd have to be careful about what you used the table for, since scratches can cause the glass to break. I like the bulthaup b2 cabinets, but they require a lot of space around them to open, and the workbench is so narrow I think I'd been losing stuff over the side constantly. And they always show it in a huge room, like an unstructured loft, with a huge table to the side. Guess where the real prep work is happening? I like concept pieces, but the story I get from the b2 is guy buys small amounts of food, which gets rinsed more than prepped, boils some pasta, does a little sauté et voilá.

Hi there! Both the Lacanche and La Cornues are lovely stoves! Our Lacanche Cluny 1400 was installed a couple of weeks ago. We have an induction hob over the warming cupboard and then the Classique configuration over the ovens. Our kitchen reno is not yet complete (waiting on counters after a mishap during fabrication), but I have used the cooktop several times. I've used induction to keep soup cooking at a simmer. I've used the power burner and smaller burners as well. Everything responds well, quality is amazing and I have no complaints. I did bake brownies in the oven, and they cooked fast. I'm sure it has to do with the fact that the ovens are smaller and takes less time to heat. I have had no repairs. My contractor did have a few questions during installation and Art Culinaire was super responsive and walked him through his questions. I think you'll find on these message boards that AC is very active, responsive and supportive to all types of questions regarding the Lacanche ranges. Are you close to a showroom? If not, you can also be connected to an owner in your area to see their range in person.