Believe piastra, but take grill with a huge grain of salt
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After a week or so with Mario Batali's "Italian Grill", I can give you a good rule of thumb: Everything he says involving a piastra (or which might possibly involve a piastra) is dead on. Everything he says otherwise you should seriously question in regard to cooking times/temperatures.
When Mario says to make the piastra HOT, he means it. When there are recipes like the thick onion slices with lemon thyme, that presumably could be cooked on the piastra even though it isn't mentioned in the recipe, they should be cooked hot hot HOT on the piastra. When you follow his prep and his timings on these recipes, you will find yourself in Italian grill nirvana. Every time.
But when there are rotisserie or grill recipes such as the 3-inch-thick ribeye, you should assume that Mario has tested on a grill that has the approximate power of an Easy Bake Oven, for those of you old enough to remember that toy.
My grill is no great shakes -- a 2002 Weber Genesis. Most steakophiles would scoff at its meager grilling power; commercial steak grills are 1100-1300F; I'm lucky if I can get mine to 550F after a week of preheating. Yet Mario says to take a room-temp 3-inch-thick ribeye and cook it over a hot grill on the hottest part of the grill for 10-12 minutes before even turning it. Are you kidding me? I cooked mine for 4 minutes a side to develop a crispy crunchy crust, then put it vertically on its t-bone for the next 30 minutes on indirect medium to get it to 120F internal temp. Even with only 4 minutes per side on direct high heat, the outside was crunchy and barely edible.
Same for the rotisserie duck I did today on indirect medium heat. Mario says 1.25 - 1.75 hours for a 4-4.5 lb. duck. My 5.25-lb. duck cooked in exactly one hour; I didn't even get a chance to apply the second coat of glaze because it was already done the first time I checked it! The skin, far from being crisp as advertised, was flabby in most places because it was cooked too fast to let the fat melt off in time.
So get the piastra. Even though my first one cracked all the way through on first use even though oiled on both sides; it had visible hairline cracks on the ridged side when I got it. The replacement so far appears pristine, and DAMN but it does a great job once you really get it really hot! But for recipes in the book that obviously make no sense on the piastra, imagine that the directions are given for a grill that has half the power that yours has. Then you'll be fine.
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