TLDR; slow and expensive but pretty close to Waffle House waffles.In pursuit of replicating the perfect Waffle House waffles at home, we identified a few critical components: the recipe (half-and-half + buttermilk, along with butter + shortening, are key), the waffle style (thin / American style, with lots of little syrup holes -- WH has 7 on the inner edges of each quarter), waffle texture (crispy on the outside, tender on the inside), and syrup (WH Twitter indicates that they source their branded syrup from Blackburn in Texas -- we ordered this from Amazon, but my family seems to think the original Blackburn syrup is NOT the right one, so we'll have to keep exploring on that front). The actual WH iron is the Wells WB-1E, which looks to be running well over a thousand dollars ... so we were hoping to be able to get close with a consumer-level iron. After some research, the best available options seem to be this All-Clad Stainless Steel Classic Round Waffle Maker, the Breville BWM520XL No-Mess Waffle Maker (roughly the same price), and the Cuisinart Classic Waffle Maker (at 1/5 the cost).The All Clad seemed to get slightly better reviews than the Breville across customer reviews and waffle iron roundups, so I started with that. I also picked up the Cuisinart locally to see how well the premium waffle iron would outperform a truly budget option. I figured I'd also test against the Krups 4-slice Belgian Waffle Maker that has been our family's go-to (before we realized how much the waffle style mattered!). I wasn't able to find reviews that gave me good visual comparisons of these waffle makers and the waffles they produced, so I'm attaching plenty of photos here.These were our results:All-Clad: Really nice build quality and appealing appearance. Cooked pretty evenly and had a nice little moat to catch slight overfill; we only had actual overflow once with this iron. It was significantly slower than the Cuisinart but significantly faster than the Krups. It had the most/smallest holes of the three waffle irons. It was (unsurprisingly) thinner than the Krups Belgian waffles but thicker than the Cuisinart. We started the doneness setting at 3 but ultimately had to go up to 6 (of 7) to get to a nice golden brown. This ultimately produced the best waffles of the three (and is easily the most attractive), but it took some trial-and-error to figure it out. The biggest downsides with this one are definitely speed and price point. 2 of 6 family members preferred this one (3 had no preference between All-Clad and Cuisinart).Cuisinart: Honestly, this is an unexpectedly good buy, dollar-for-dollar. It cranked out nice, thin waffles with great texture, and it cooked quickly. Downsides - the build feels pretty cheap/flimsy, it was unforgiving with overflow (so pretty messy on the whole), and there is neither a visible timer nor audible indicator to know when it's done, so you really have to keep your eye on it for the green "ready" light (as we had a production line going, we missed - and burned - a few). Doneness at "4" on the Cuisinart was a bit darker than the "6" doneness on the All-Clad. The holes were not quite as small as that of the All-Clad, but the thinness was on point. 1 of 6 family members preferred this one (3 had no preference between All-Clad and Cuisinart).Krups: It's a Belgian waffle iron, so we didn't have any illusions about it really emulating WH waffles, but we still wanted to have it in the mix to compare how much the waffle style/thickness/holes ultimately mattered, since we'd be using the same "Waffle House" batter in all of them. The verdict among our six family members was conclusive - strong preference for the round, thinner, smaller-holed waffles. That said, the Krups waffle iron IS great for a crowd. The 1/4 square is substantial (taking about the same amount of batter as the full rounds of the Cuisinart and All-Clad), and though it probably took twice as long to cook as the All-Clad, it's putting out four nice-sized waffles at a time. I'd say it cooked the most evenly, though it did have more tendency to overflow than the All-Clad. As a Belgian waffle maker, it was naturally the deepest (though I was expecting a more dramatic difference; waffle height pics are included for comparison), and it had fewer and bigger holes. Ultimately, while this is a consistent and reliable waffle iron, we're retiring this one from our regular waffle night rotation unless we're cooking for a larger group.OVERALL: I really have no complaints about the All-Clad waffle maker, and I'm glad that I got it; I'm just not sure that its appearance (so pretty), moat (pretty clean altogether), and beep (which feels like it SHOULD be a baseline feature) make it 5x better than the Cuisinart, dollar for dollar. We do like to have three waffle irons going at a time for our family of six, and I'm conflicted on whether to just buy another Cuisinart (fast, cheap, and delicious - but definitely high maintenance to monitor and clean up) or to bring the Breville No-Mess waffle iron into the mix (looks like it might be the thinnest of all?) to really make this a comprehensive comparison.