Alessi’s Sleek spoon may not be new, but it was news to me. The elegant utensil popped up in one of my favorite shopping newsletters this week, and stopped my doomscrolling in its tracks — first, with its svelte baby blue silhouette; secondly, with its purported multi-tool design. Not that it’s hard to find great multi-use kitchen tools, but it can be tricky to find a multi-tool that looks effortless and, well, sleek.
Pros: It’s an affordable multi-tasking tool with a design-forward aesthetic.
Cons: Like all divas, she’s a little high maintenance. (Hand washing is suggested for this resin tool.)
Sleek, which was first designed in 1962 by the uber-cool Castiglioni brothers, has double-ended functionality: one end of the nearly 8-inch long tool is a spoon-spatula hybrid, while the other is a slender spatula designed for taller, narrow jars or hard-to-reach crevices (I can also see myself frosting a cake with it). As a person of many jars, bowls, and pans, this rocks.
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Alessi
You know Alessi, even if you don’t think you do. Chances are, you have seen the 103-year-old Italian design house’s anthropomorphic bottle openers and Bahaus-worthy espresso pots in museum gift shops, natural wine bars, or on the bar cart of a self-described “creative director” you once had a crush on. While some of Alessi’s funhouse wares don’t always feel functional (I have never mastered its sexy, extraterrestrial juicer), this spoon-spatula hybrid (or, “spoonula,” in the words of the cookware brand Get It Right) strikes me as the perfect blend of form and function — a sleek addition to my kitchen drawer, if ever there was one. The under $25 price tag is also appreciated, if not for myself, for the many stockings I have to fill this holiday season.
