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Nov 22, 2023

Kitchen gadgets review: BBQ Toolbox

Workmanlike in heft, pillar-box red in hue, this portable, covert grill is irresistible The BBQ Toolbox (£54.95, prezzybox.com) is a metal box, with an adjustable vent, that holds hot coal. Food is

Workmanlike in heft, pillar-box red in hue, this portable, covert grill is irresistible

The BBQ Toolbox (£54.95, prezzybox.com) is a metal box, with an adjustable vent, that holds hot coal. Food is suspended above the heat source by a rack of bars.

The only tool you need is self-belief. Just kidding, tongs are waaay more important.

When I – I’m using the royal “I” here – lack the mental tools to fit myself to the world, physical ones stand in surprisingly well. Fixing a floorboard, patching a hole in plasterboard, laying hands on the stopcock: these are all good ways to signal you are a human person, not a tepid mess of behavioural disorders. Screw it, you don’t need to mend anything: merely holding a toolbox makes a man feel as though he has purpose and weight.

Being drawn to the handyman look, I’m also drawn to this Transformer-y kit, although it contains no bradawl, no drill bits, no cross-recessed turnscrew. It does contain the ability to cook sausages. Let’s start with the bad: if you’re catering for a large party, cooking on this covert barbecue is like boiling oysters in a mug. There is no lid and durability is questionable. It will probably live indoors when not in use, but at least it’s compact – about the size of a toolbox, in fact. And there is charm here, from the gull-wing warming rack and tool caddy that unpack elegantly, to arms that swing around themselves to become crossed legs, in an agonising yoga pose, holding the box an inch off the ground. It holds a kilo of coal. Cooking is rudimentary – but come on, it’s a grill. Workmanlike in heft, pillar-box red in hue.

I find the sheer portability irresistible. I carry it everywhere now, like a handbag of meat, announcing myself as the Barbecue Man (written down, I realise that sounds like an episode of Monster in My Family). It’s a sweet feeling to be Barbecue Man. Turn up to a cheese-and-wine evening, innocently ask if anyone wouldn’t prefer lamb skewers or chargrilled halloumi, bit o’ chlorine chicken, and BANG – make it happen. In my experience, your hosts won’t thank you for wapping out your toolbox at their soiree, but everyone else will. Come on barbie, let’s go party.

If you carry tools around, people ask you to do things for them. As if you are a policeman in the 50s. But, just like the evil nephew of the Man from Del Monte: “Barbecue Man says no.”

A frenemy’s terrace. 3/5

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