The Best Watermelon Slicer and Server

The Angurello Watermelon Slicer and Server by IPAC ($15.96) promises to make quick, easy, and clean work of slicing and serving watermelon. It’s essentially a set of tongs with two connected, parallel, crescent-shaped blades at one end. To use the tool, you insert it into a halved watermelon and guide it down and across the flesh in rows, creating mostly rind-less slices of consistent width. Once you’ve cut slices in one direction, you can also make a new set of cuts at a right angle to the original ones, producing rectangular fingers of melon. To serve, you pinch the tongs around each slice or finger and lift it out. We wanted to know whether this tool does a neater, faster, more consistent job of cutting and serving watermelon than a knife, so we put it to the test.

The results were clear—and disappointing. The watermelon released just as much juice when we used this tool as when we cut it with a knife, and while the tool’s blades were sharp, it wasn’t faster or easier to use than a knife. In fact, it took slightly more time to make each new cut line up with the last, and we had to yank upward awkwardly to dislodge the tool after each slice. Those big, scythe-like blades lacked precise control when serving the fruit, sometimes mashing it in the process. And of course, if you buy a whole watermelon, you’ll still need a knife to cut it open.

Worse, because it was impossible to gauge how deeply the tool was slicing into the melon, we either took too much off the bottom (leaving on undesirable rind) or, more often, too little (wasting lots of fruit). Either way, the finished slices and cubes—though of consistent thickness, as promised—had odd, swooping, erratically cut bottom edges. Additionally, some tasters bemoaned the lack of a rind “handle.”

For perfect, presentation-worthy watermelon slices and cubes, save your money and stick with your knife. A serrated knife will get the job done in less time—and much more attractively and efficiently, too.