It’s able to do this because of a couple features most air fryers lack: dual top-and-bottom burners, and a broad cooking surface. The Dome 2 is shaped differently from other air fryers: Its 5.6-quart basket is shallow, but also expansive enough you can lay out a 12-inch pizza or two dozen party wings across its surface. This maximizes cooking space, and also air flow across a single layer of food.
But also, this means heat can come from both the top or the bottom, to cook different foods differently: A grill function heats via direct heat, from the bottom. Thus the nice char or leopard spots on my pork chops or pizza.
As a side benefit, the Dome 2 has a self-clean function just like the one on your oven that’ll burn off any aerosolized oil, meaning it won’t start to smell funny or smoke as you keep on using it. Firmware updates have added a few features, like manual starts on the self-clean function.
The downside is that it’s big: The Dome 2 takes up a lot of space on your counter, and is also a bit bulky to pull in and out of a cabinet. It’s best for the person who truly loves the speed, crispness, and easy clean-up of an air fryer but likes the added grill or toasting capabilities as a bonus.
That said, if what you really want is an oven that can do a little bit of air frying, I’d opt for the Breville Smart Oven Pro ($350) instead. As luck would have it, that Breville is also on sale during Prime Day. It’s a modest deal, but still a real one—$50 off.
