We don’t know how ergonomic this thing will be to use. For all we know, it could be the most cumbersome kitchen tool you will ever put your hands on. Regardless of its actual usefulness in practice, the Gentlemen’s Hardware Kitchen Multi-Tool deserves our admiration for its sheer audacity. I mean, look at the darn thing.
Designed to save you from the hassle of digging around a crowded kitchen drawer, the rig bundles 12 kitchen tools in a Swiss Army Knife form factor. Except, instead of being portable like traditional pocket knives, the darn thing houses full-sized kitchen implements, so you can use it for actual food prep duties like any other tool in the kitchen.
The Gentlemen’s Hardware Kitchen Multi-Tool is, basically, a giant pocket knife with fold-out tools sandwiched inside the wooden scale. To use a tool, simply pluck it out of the pile, fold it out, and use the rest of the ensemble as an oversized handle. The entire tool, by the way, can be separated down the middle if the entire pile is too thick for your hands to grip, which also allows you to use two tools at the exact same time, so you can use the garlic crusher to mince a bunch of cloves with one hand while carving a large piece of roast beef using the fork with the other.
As for the dozen tools on board, it comes with food prep items like a cheese grater, a stirring spoon, and a garlic crusher, along with cutlery such as a serrated knife, a paring knife, a carving fork, a zester, and a peeler. They also throw in a cork screw, a can opener, and a bottle opener, so you can get rid of that three-in-one opening tool you have sitting in the drawer and just use this more versatile alternative instead. The cheese grater sits outside the wooden scale, by the way, while rest of the tools are bundled up fold-out style in the middle.
Since the Gentlemen’s Hardware Kitchen Multi-Tool bundles everything in a single ensemble, it saves a whole lot of space in the kitchen, apart from freeing you from the hassle of trying to find that zester you last used two months ago and can’t seem to locate anymore. I mean, you can push this to one side of the drawer and tidy up the usual mess there in a considerable manner.
The biggest problem with having a dozen tools in a Swiss Army Knife configuration? Figuring out how to clean them. I mean, how the heck do you clean this thing? Do you have to remove the scales and clean each item individually? Can I just throw it in the dishwasher and have them all magically cleaned by the time it’s finished? There’s no mention about it on the product page, so I imagine it’s not going to be easy. It measures 9.4 x 4.3 x 2.8 inches (length x width x depth).
Available now, the Gentlemen’s Hardware Kitchen Multi-Tool is priced at £29.99.