

First, its three U-shaped burners wind around the cooking area under the griddle. The Flatrock has a few smart design elements. After spending several weeks cooking meals at all hours of the day, I’m a believer. Traeger, for a long time the biggest name in pellet grills, released its first gas-powered cooker into the world in the form of the Flatrock, which features a sizeable carbon-steel cooktop. But that was before I actually used a flattop griddle. Flattops could not, I thought, do nearly as much as even a basic kettle grill (I wasn’t going to be smoking anything on a flattop), and they are big, heavy, and often expensive. That has generally kept me away from the large outdoor flattop griddles I’d seen sizzling on street corners during my time living in New York City. Despite what my backyard might indicate (I am someone who routinely fires up multiple grills at a time for Epi’s grill testing), there is only so much space one can devote to outdoor cooking devices.
