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- Fits a 12-inch pizza
- Dishwasher-safe and self-cleaning
- Extra functions via the app
- Single shallow drawer
- Expensive
- Large worktop footprint
For those who love the idea of air frying but dislike the typical boxy design, there’s the Typhur Dome 2 Air Fryer. The successor to the Typhur Dome, which launched a few years ago, this appliance is everything other air fryers aren’t: sleek, futuristic-looking, and with optional connectivity.
But it’s not just aesthetics and an app that set the Typhur Dome 2 apart. Inside, there’s both a top and a bottom heating element for less food flipping and shaking, as well as acres of flat space: enough for a 12-inch pizza, 32 wings, a couple of steaks or 10 strips of bacon. And two self-cleaning modes tackle the grease build-up that results from cooking them.
Plus, while air fryer apps can bring little to the party, Typhur’s adds value, enabling more modes to bring the total number of cooking programmes to 15. However, some of these could do with a tweak and, during testing, results were mixed.
Typhur Dome 2 Air Fryer review: What do you get for the money?
The Typhur Dome 2 is a single-drawer air fryer, made with PFAS-free non-stick ceramic-coated aluminium alloy drawers and plates, for easy cleaning. It comes with a hefty price tag just under £500 – that’s more than many dual air fryers. What’s more, it offers 5.3L of capacity, meaning it has more in common with the best small air fryers than other family-sized models.
Fortunately, the drawer provides enough flat space (measuring 31 x 31cm, resulting in 901cm²) for a 12-inch pizza. However, while flat space isn’t in short supply, vertical space is: the basket height is a mere 6cm, meaning that you’ll be able to cook pieces of food but not a joint of meat or whole chicken. The other aspect to consider is its footprint. With overall dimensions of 50 x 39.6 x 26.2cm (WxDxH), it’s a worksurface hog in the average kitchen. While it’s light enough (9.07kg) to be tucked away in a cupboard, you may find that it impacts significantly on available prep area when in use.
The Typhur Dome 2 comes in a choice of two colours: silver or a darker grey. It has a touchscreen control panel that’s thoughtfully laid out: eight programmes flank a large digital display with arrows for toggling the time and temperature of each. There are, however, a few shortcuts hidden within these buttons. For example, two self-cleaning programmes, normal and deep, are only accessed by holding two buttons down, while other buttons toggle between Celsius and Fahrenheit.
Its default selection of programmes, including steak, toast and bacon, should cover most everyday cooking, plus there are handy reheat and dehydrate settings. It has a low of 40.5°C with the high reaching 232.2°C. Most programmes run for up to an hour, with the exception of the dehydrate mode, which can be extended up to 24 hours.
A common air fryer feature that appears to be missing here is the alert to flip or shake food. While the positioning of two heating elements – both above and below the cooking area – reduces the need to turn or shake food, I chose to do this anyway during testing for comparison’s sake.
At 1,750W, the Typhur Dome 2 Air Fryer isn’t as power hungry as some. One hour’s usage at 200°C consumed 0.746 kWh of electricity. At a rate of 25p per unit, this would cost around 18p. There’s also a two-year warranty.
How I tested the Typhur Dome 2 Air Fryer
Before any cooking happens, the first thing I do is test the power consumption of the air fryer by running it empty for 1 hour at 200°C, using a plug-in power meter to record usage. If the air fryer has two drawers, I will run both. If it’s one large drawer, I’ll make sure I remove any dividers before running it.
The first test is frozen food: I fill one section of the air fryer with frozen hash browns and note how many the drawer/s can comfortably fit. If the manufacturer provides cooking guidance, I will follow its recommended settings. Otherwise, I cook them for 18 minutes at 200°C, turning them over halfway through cooking. Once cooked, I note how soft or crispy the hash browns are, and how evenly they’ve been browned – if at all.
Next is homemade chips. After peeling and chopping potatoes into pieces, and soaking them for a few hours, they’re patted dry, and tossed in a small amount of oil (I use a blend of avocado and rapeseed oil). Again, if there’s cooking guidance for homemade chips, I follow it, but my go-to setting is 200°C for 30 minutes, shaking multiple times throughout cooking. I note how crispy the resulting chips are, if cooking is even throughout the batch, if any pieces are not cooked properly, and if they’re soft in the middle.
Finally, I’ll use the air fryer to cook chicken. A whole bird is ideal, usually at 180°C for 50 minutes, but I’ll opt for chicken legs if there’s limited space. I’ll turn the chicken over halfway through cooking. And once roasted, I carve the flesh, and note if the juices are running clear, if there is any pink flesh remaining, especially around the bone, and if the skin is crisp or brown.
In addition to my standardised cooking tests, I’ll make a note of how easy the air fryer is to use, how intuitive its settings and cooking instructions are, how quick and efficient it is, and how much space it takes up on my kitchen worktop.
Typhur Dome 2 Air Fryer review: What’s it like to use?
My first task with the Typhur Dome 2 Air Fryer was linking it to the app, and I was pleasantly surprised when it connected on the first attempt. Unlike some air fryer apps, Typhur’s provides genuinely useful extras, increasing the number of preset modes from eight to 15: these include roast, broil and griddle plus a frozen option. It’s also possible to change the fan speed in the app (between high, medium or low). However, while you can programme these settings via the app, safety precautions mean you’ll still need to press start on the appliance itself – even if you want to resume cooking after using the app to pause it. It’s also worth noting that, during cooking, my phone screen locking resulted in temporary loss of connection with the air fryer.
The supplied instructions include some cooking guidance by way of a recipe table that lists suggested times, temperatures and amounts for different foods. Beyond that, you’re on your own. For this reason, I’d suggest that the Dome 2 is more suitable for someone who is already familiar with air frying. On top of this, I noticed that a few of the proposed times and temperatures were cooler or shorter than I would expect. During cooking, some of these combinations were effective, others less so.
Another challenge came in the form of replacing the basket in the air fryer, which has to be done completely flat, not at an angle. The instructions warn of potentially scraping the ceramic coating and, after an intense testing period, I started to notice scuffs at the edges where I hadn’t inserted the drawer accurately. That said, I like the crisper plate’s wire loop, which makes lifting it out after cooking far easier than others.
The Dome 2 has been designed to be quieter than other air fryers and generally, I found that it achieves this: there’s less ‘whooshing’ than some rivals I’ve tested, and I was able to hold a conversation in the kitchen while it was cooking. It also has a self-cleaning mode to remove grease and debris from the interior and heating element, which Typhur recommends using fortnightly if you often cook fatty food.
I ran the self-cleaning setting after my testing cycle had ended and, while I didn’t notice any smoke or steam emerging from the air fryer, the process somehow repeatedly set off the smoke alarm in my open plan kitchen. I’d suggest running an extractor fan at the same time, or at least opening a window, to ensure good ventilation.
Typhur Dome 2 Air Fryer review: How well does it cook?
Overall, the results from my cooking tests with the Typhur Dome 2 were mixed: some foods cooked brilliantly, while others involved a process of trial-and-error.
For hash browns, I decided to use the frozen preset. This one is only available in the app, but its time, temperature and fan speed (18 minutes, 190°C, high) are listed in the instructions, so they can be set manually on the appliance. The large area of the crisper plate meant that 18 hash browns fitted easily. Since there was no alert to turn or shake the food, and only the upper heating element was on, I opted to turn them halfway through. Once cooked, all of the hash browns were crisp and not soggy, while most – but not all – had golden brown corners.
In my opinion, the preset for fries (17 minutes at 165°C) seemed too low and short for homemade chips, and it wasn’t clear if this was intended for frozen chips. However, as this was also the default temperature for air frying, I decided to try it. After cooking time had elapsed, the chips were pale and had only just started to bubble, with small amounts of browning. I added on another 10 minutes at the same temperature, which produced better results: the chips were much crispier, not as pale and with more browning.
I don’t bake pizza as part of my standard tests but given that it was part of the Dome 2’s appeal (its makers say it was inspired by a pro pizza oven), I cooked a pizza using the corresponding preset. This includes a six-minute preheat to bring the air fryer up to temperature, with an alert when it’s time to add the food. As the duration appears to be designed for frozen pizza, I cooked the fresh one for half the allotted time. The base rose slightly but the crust was overcooked and hard, suggesting that the setting may dry some pizzas out.
There was no guidance provided for chicken legs – only thighs, wings, and breast pieces, so I stuck with my usual settings with the roast preset. Four legs fitted easily. After six minutes of cooking, I could hear chicken starting to sizzle, so I reduced the time by five minutes, giving an overall cooking time of 25 minutes. The chicken was thoroughly cooked through, with clear juices and mostly crisp skin.
Should you buy the Typhur Dome 2 Air Fryer?
In a crowded air fryer market, the Typhur Dome 2 stands out. Rather than being an appliance that’s entirely practical, it’s beautifully designed, easy to programme and feels robust in general.
The app – while only currently adding extra presets and the ability to change settings – offers bags of potential: for example, at a later date you might be able to create your own favourites or presets for recipes. I also appreciated the self-cleaning programme for getting rid of greasy gunk before it builds up.
However, this all comes with a substantial price tag that’s hard to justify when compared to other air fryers. For just over half that amount, you can have steam cooking and a large split drawer with the Philips Airfryer 5000 Series, or for a snip of the cost, Cuisinart’s ClearView 9-in-1 AFC9U Air Fryer can also accommodate the same size pizza.
