Clever Tongs are a kitchen utensil that combines tongs with a flexible spatula. Do they work as advertised? Here is our Clever Tongs review.
About Clever Tongs
Clever Tongs are a combination of stainless steel tongs and a pliable silicone cradle. The official website is clevertongs.com, with a registration date of March 2017. The screen capture below was taken of the product website in August 2017.
Claims & Features
- Combination of spatula and tongs
- Flip, grab, hold, and scoop a wide variety of foods
- Nonstick and resists heat
- Cradle is made of silicone and frame is made from stainless steel
- Pick up and hold food with the hammock/cradle design
- Can rinse clean or wash in dishwasher
Cost
When ordering Clever Tongs, there is a mandatory double offer. The cost is $19.99 + $4.99 P&H + $4.99 additional P&H for a total of $29.97. This offer includes two large sets of Clever Tongs and one small set.
Clever Tongs Review
Clever Tongs can best be described as a pair of kitchen tongs with a piece of flexible plastic connecting the two sides. This seemingly minor addition to the standard tong design is said to allow you to pick up food more easily as it provides a base through which food cannot fall.
You use Clever Tongs the way you would use any standard set of tongs, however, you can use the “spatula” portion to scoop up food more easily. This allows you to scoop and squeeze in order to more firmly grip your food. The width of the tongs is about as wide as a slice of bread. If you need to flip food wider than that, you probably won’t be able to use Clever Tongs.
I found that picking up longer objects such as hot dogs, bread, etc, worked fine. It also worked great for ground beef, which I was able to recreate from the advertising. Attempting to pick up smaller objects seemed to reveal what I would describe as a design flaw. There is a gap between the end of the spatula portion and the end of the tong portion, which makes picking up smaller objects quite difficult. In the video below, you can see that this ‘gap’ seemed to be problematic for pizza rolls, hard boiled eggs, and even a small piece of fish.
There is a small latch which allows you to keep the Clever Tongs closed for easy storage. The latch on my small Clever Tong kept engaging even when I didn’t want it to. It’s not a huge problem, but I did find myself having to keep adjusting it before flipping food.
My only other concern is regarding the longevity of the connective material. Most kitchen utensils are made of wood, hard plastic, or metal to ensure durability. I’m just not sure how long a pliable piece of plastic or silicone will hold up over time under repeated high heat and the constant stress of bending. That said, I did find that washing it went without a hitch. I have washed these in the dishwasher, by hand, and using a kitchen brush.
I’m not a fan of mandatory double offers, which is the case here. Thus, you’ll end up paying about $10 in non-refundable shipping whether you like the item or not. I have not seen Clever Tongs in stores yet, but I did find them on Amazon for about $25 for one large and one small unit.
In the end, I don’t think Clever Tongs offer much over what everyone already has in their kitchens: a spoon, a spatula, and tongs. It’s a neat idea, but becauase it didn’t always work for me, I don’t feel like it’s a true replacement for any of those items.
Alternatives
There are so many devices out there that have combined a spatula and tongs into one unit that it would be impossible to list them all here. This inexpensive GrillPro Turner/Tong is one popular choice. In the As Seen on TV genre, a product called Grip N Flip came out a few years ago and you can still find several knockoffs of that for about $8-$12.
Your Clever Tongs Reviews
What are your thoughts about Clever Tongs? Drop a comment below and a star rating above to let us know what you think about it.
Updated February 2018.
