Most DeLonghi hobs are gas with cast iron trivets. Photograph the layout, lift the trivets, caps and crowns, and soak the enamelled parts flat in a non-caustic degreaser for an hour. Clear ports with a wooden toothpick, never metal, and dry cast iron by hand.
DeLonghi hobs in Australian kitchens are predominantly Italian gas: cast iron trivets over enamelled burner bases, sold through the 2000s and 2010s into apartments and townhouses. If yours is glass rather than gas, our cooktop cleaning guide covers what that needs.
The trivets are the job
On a gas DeLonghi almost all of the visible improvement comes from the trivets, and almost none of it comes from wiping the surface they sit on.
Lift them off cold, after photographing the layout from directly above. Soak them flat for an hour in hot water with a non-caustic degreaser, in a bath or tub lined with an old towel so the cast iron does not chip the porcelain. Work them with a stiff nylon brush rather than wire, because wire leaves bright scars through the enamel and those scars rust.
Then dry them by hand, immediately and completely. This is the step people skip and it is the one that matters most in Sydney, where exposed iron flashes orange within hours of being left damp. A trivet that has been left wet once tends to keep rusting at the same spot for the rest of its life.
The caps are not interchangeable
DeLonghi hobs typically carry three or four burner sizes, and the caps and crowns are matched to them. A large cap seated on a medium crown sits proud, the flame lifts off the ports, and the burner will not hold a simmer.
That failure presents as a gas supply problem and is a reassembly problem. It is why the photograph before disassembly is worth the ten seconds, and it is the single most common post-clean complaint on any multi-size gas hob.
Age, and what it means for parts
Most of these are fifteen to twenty five years old. DeLonghi is still a large company with an Australian presence, so parts are not the difficulty they are with an orphaned brand, but a hob from 2006 will not have current part numbers and the model plate underneath the appliance becomes essential rather than helpful.
If the DeLonghi is freestanding, the hob and the oven are one appliance and are cleaned as one. See how to clean a DeLonghi oven.
The hob base, which is where the years accumulate
With the burners lifted off, what you are looking at is the enamelled steel base of the hob, and on a fifteen year old appliance that is where the real deposit is.
Every boil-over has run down there. Every spill that went under a trivet has been baked by the burner above it. Because it is completely hidden in normal use, it is the surface with the longest continuous history on the whole appliance, and it is frequently the reason a hob smells when the burners are lit despite looking clean from above.
Treat it the way you would treat an oven cavity rather than a benchtop: apply a non-caustic cleaner, give it a genuine dwell of twenty minutes or so, and work it rather than wiping it. Keep liquid away from the ignition electrodes, the ceramic-tipped pins beside each burner, because a wet electrode clicks without lighting until it dries out.
On a hob that has never been taken apart, expect this to need a second application after the first has lifted the top layer.
What actually goes wrong
Rusted trivets, dried by air rather than by hand.
A burner that will not simmer, from a cap on the wrong crown.
Ports enlarged with a metal pin, which changes the gas-to-air mix permanently and gives a yellow, sooty flame.
A wet ignition electrode after cleaning, which clicks without lighting and resolves itself within a few hours.
Should you do it yourself?
Do it yourself, taking the burners apart every month or two before anything sets hard. The soak does the work and there is nothing to damage.
Get someone in if the hob base under the burners has set solid after years without attention, or if a burner has become unreliable.