Tefal Vitacuisine Compact VS400370

Tefal need to get their engineers to improve their fatigue knowledge – Hi Tefal, I bought your VitaCuisine Compact a few years ago because I wanted a quality product that wouldn't break after a few years. However, it developed fatigue cracks after a few months (but kept working). The fatigue cracks became worse with time (as fatigue does) and now the baskets and bases have completely broken due to the fatigue. If I… Read more

wanted something that would only last a couple of years I would have bought the equivalent Anko unit and saved myself over $100 bucks. You need to get your engineers to improve their fatigue assessment skills.

It is okay – Updated on March 2021 It is still working perfectly since the last review. Now I give this product 5 stars. ------------ The product did what I expect. I use it to reheat food and cook porage and rice for my kid. I can't say it is perfect. But we get what we paid for. The small version is neat and suitable for a kitchen. The last one I bough… Read more

broken in about 3 years, for the frequency (two to three times a day) I am using this product, I think it is acceptable.

Fabulous steamer – Have had this steamer for 10 months and use it once to twice a week. It is ideal when coming home late from work to whip up a nutritious meal in very little time. It is easy to use and clean. Comes with a good cookbook that has a variety of recipes. I highly recommend this steamer.  Show details

Disappointed – We bought this on the 15th August and less than a month it was broken. The monitor keep on showing the sign to put water in while there is water inside already. Tefal gave me a phone number which does not deal with products under warranty, and another numberis 35km away from my home to check the product. Eventually Appliance Online offer me a refund/replacement, i choose refund because i do not want to get another faulty product.  Show details

The Best of the Steamers – We have owned this product for about 3 months and use it every single night to steam vegetables. It was replacement for 2 other steamers that after using this one I had never realized how bad they actually were. Just WoW; the food tastes so much better from this unit. The cook timer is less time to cook than what other units did and did I… Read more ·  1

mention WOW the food tastes so much better from this unit.

This is the first appliance where I have to actually read the how to use instructions in long time and would not called it intuitive till I realized all the good functions are mostly automatic on it.

I was little disappointed with the cook book size and multiple multiple multiple languages. Honestly I know they sell to the world but is it to much trouble to stick to primary languages (under 6) or just drop idea of cook book altogether as printing it ~imo is huge waste of paper and not essential or value adding to the product. You could have website cover all languages and uses zero paper and if I want it go print it. We live in modern times.

Anyway apart from cook book of useless-fulness another purchase well worth the money and important part of our kitchen.

bad – we bought it and broke after one month. keep showing the sign to put water where water is already in it we are very disappointed with the product and we thought tefal is a good brand but unfortunately not. will not recommend anymore all these steamers are not good quality

excellent happy with it – I Cooked juicy stuffed chicken breasts .potatoes.pumpkin, beans, brocoli and a custard pudding as well for dessert.turned out ..wonderful and tasty .. definately a healthy choice for cooking i love it and the recipe book is fantastic.anyone choosing a steamer id highly recommend it indeed for the price and performance...havnt had a problem so far...  Show 2 replies

Dubious Materials of Construction – Having had bad experience with the medium term durability of a couple of steamers at the lower price range, I went for the upper end (relatively) Tefal VitaCuisine. First off, the slightly lower heights of the compartments did not deter me: I could place taller food containers in the uppermost section where the cover gives more leeway and leave… Read more

the lower compartments to shorter containers. All in all, the steamer was easy to use. The LED display was all bells and whistles, with the usual programming and an extra wide button below for turbo steam. You could adjust steaming time by individual minutes though it took some time to reach the desired time. I found the plus button (for adding time) not too responsive and it sometimes backtracks the time shown if pushed in a certain direction. And the handle of the cover was a bit wriggly. These were not life threatening symptoms and were tolerated. But then I noticed a strong "chemical" smell while the steamed was in use, which is common with most of these steamers and I thought it would go away with use, as with similar steamers. After a couple of months of daily use, the smell had subsided a little but was still there. I also notice the transparent base/separator plate of the top compartment had a number of large and micro cracks in it. As well, the black plastic parts of the steamer in contact with water started to fade in colour and develop random blisters of up to a couple of mils in diameter. This was totally unacceptable to me and I promptly took it back to where I bought it. God knows how much of the chemicals had leached into the food and air during cooking! After some diligent research I have found there is only one steamer that is labelled BPA-free and not readily available locally. And even then you might get other nasty surprises, especially where heat and steam are involved. BTW, the same is true of your plastic water bottles, not through heat and steam action but the long contact time. (See "BPA-Free Plastics" by Dr. Nan Kathryn Fuchs for instance). In the end, though not before I bought another such steamer, I took a huge discount offer from Myer and got myself the Cook's Kitchen 7.5L Covered Stock Pot with pasta insert (stainless steel sort of strainer in an outer pot) at AUD $52+, a medium weight beauty on its own even without the discount. It is less convenient and you'll need a kitchen timer, a steaming stacker or two (for a few dollars more), and maybe, in my case, a dedicated electric hot plate (the pot has of course no heating element). Given some foreplanning, it can be done with a variety of configurations using your own utensils. And the peace of mind accruing seems unreal.

Better Overall – We started with a TEFAL VITA CUISINE and all went well for a full year but only days out of warranty it started to play up steaming continually non-stop, water evaporating quickly and even though we topped up it kept displaying water level sign and beeping and would not proceed even after turning it completely off main plug and re-starting. … Read more

Next few days worked for 10 minutes then repeating as above

so we replaced with a GEORGE FOREMAN believing they were on a par

the latter much better priced... then there were discovery surprises...

(See GF Review to Follow if approved by website)

GENERAL COMMENTS

Price: Rather high for durability but makes out with some good Features

Watch and Control:

Set going and move on with other jobs returning only for adding

less cooking time needed veggies on designated count down times

Durability:

Lasted a few days only after warranty expiration

but was used daily often twice a day.

PROS

Basket Shape Oval – Happy with it preferable to Round

Steaming:

START/ STOP Operation best for Nutrient Retention

Takes longer for water/steam to evaporate even using 2 tiers

it completes (vegetarian steaming) without needing water Top up.

Vitamin Boost

Extra Feature. I disagree high heat shorter time retains Vitamins

–in fact the opposite but used as a Quick Start for 2 Minutes is a Pro

and still does not cause Need for Water Top up.

Time Increments:

One Minute +- Increments give better control of needed steaming

Clock/Timer:

Large Illuminated Digital Display allows watching from distance

Water Level window:

No Level window – Beeps when water Top up needed

Keep Warm function:

Keeps warm for a long time without additional steaming.

When Temperature drops it steams very briefly and stops

Allows keeping warm longer without overcooking.

- - -

CONS

Baskets - Tier Base Trays:

Baskets feel rather Flimsy and Fragile with detachable bases.

Only First Tier Base is Perforated and with semi-secure lock-very fragile.

Tier 2 & 3 also detachable, stronger solid bases, perforated only on sides

but causing water to collect, unsteady for serve, fall easily out of basket.

Water Top Up Placement:

Internal, must remove Hot Trays and Hot Water containing Catcher

to add water in bottom compartment. Not using the vitamin Boost

for more than 2 minutes reduces evaporation and need for To ups.

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Overall compared with what is available it is a good machine

and i would not hesitate recommending.

* Solid Base Perforated Baskets

* An external Top up Receptacle and

* Manual Override water sign/Beep when water is topped up

would make it Perfect. Time Increments, Clock/Timer Dispaly, Baskets - Tier Base Trays Fragile 2 and 3 water collecting

Love it love it love it – I won this when I completed the Health Heart Challenge... Thank you Tefal.. Not only was I surprised to win anything as that wasn't the reason I entered the challenge, but we now have our favourite family item for the kitchen (and my husband is slightly obsessed with kitchen items so we have quite a few).. My 3 year old twin girls fight over who… Read more

is going to have the most vegies (this has never happened before and was always an effort to get anything but mashed potato down their gobs).. corn, beans, Carrots (they never tasted so good), asparagus, zucchini, the list is endless.. all delicious, easy as to prepare and healthy.. who would have thought healthy food would be so yum.. Thanks so much.. Food tastes awesome, easy to prepare and clean