This honest review of the Our Place Wonder Oven contains affiliate links.
Our Place – makers and purveyors of aesthetically pleasing (and chemical free) pots and pans – have stalked my social media for a while.
Each time I opened my Instagram app, yet another advert for a non stick frying pan – the colour of a winter’s sky – appeared. Their marketing was enticing and seductive; a wash of muted tones and slow cooked casseroles.
Unsurprisingly, when it came to Our Place pots and pans, generation TikTok could hardly contain themselves.
Following the success of its pans, it wasn’t long before Our Place began to broaden its horizons- this time fixing its pastel washed branding on 2023’s most viral product: the air fryer.
Acknowledging that whilst incredibly handy, the average air fryer is bulky, ugly and cumbersome, Our Place decided to shake things up – creating and launching a hybrid appliance that was somewhere between a microwave, toaster, small oven and air fryer.
The Frankenstein (bride) of kitchen appliances – the Wonder Oven.
Flying off the shelves and sold out in just 8 days following its launch, the internet was agog at this tiny little oven. Although many have, and continue, to mistake it for the famous kid’s ‘Easy Bake’ oven, the reviews were instantly positive. This tiny oven could, apparently, do it all.
Roast a chicken? No problem. Bake a cake? Easy. Reheat last night’s curry? A breeze.
However, since its launch, some chinks in the Wonder Oven’s armour have begun to show. Reviews have become less glowing as time has gone by, as some have complained about the oven’s durability, sensitivity and practicality.
Our Place’s rose-tinted crown has slipped, a little.
A year on, and having watched the Wonder Oven’s honeymoon period play out, I decided to finally give in to Our Place’s pastel toned marketing. When the Black Friday sale hit, I ordered myself a Wonder Oven.
I’ve now been using this tiny appliance for four months – and what a four months it’s been. We’ve had ups and downs, celebrations and fights – perfectly risen cakes and charred salmon fillets.
To summarise our journey, below is my honest review of the Wonder Oven by Our Place.
Is the Wonder Oven an Air Fryer?
First things’s first – what exactly is the Wonder Oven? Is the Wonder Oven a real oven? Is it for children? Is the Our Place Wonder Oven an air fryer?
Well, in truth, this countertop oven is all of the above. A Jack of all Trades, perhaps.
According to Our Place, the Wonder Oven is a 6-in-1 device; a ‘countertop connoisseur’ that can air fry, bake, roast, grill, reheat, and toast. With a small hole to add water, the Wonder Oven can also deploy ‘steam infusion technology’ to ensure crispy exteriors and soft, moist interiors.
Apparently able to preheat 75% faster than your standard oven and cooking up to 30% faster, this oven can – on the face of it -save you both time and money.
And, the best bit? It’s smaller than your average microwave, taking up less than 30cm on your countertop and weighing less than 5kg.
In all honesty, the Wonder Oven seems a little bit of a dream come true. An oven with a tiny footprint that can perform the jobs of at least six appliances.
I guess the question is – why isn’t everyone buying one?
How Much Does the Wonder Oven Cost?
The reason I spent months wondering whether buying a Wonder Oven was worth it, was – quite simply because of its price tag.
And a pretty hefty price tag at that.
In the US, the Wonder Oven is currently $200 and in the UK it’s selling for £195.
Of course, if you compare this to the most popular models of air fryers – the Ninja Foodi Dual, for example – then this is pretty much in keeping. However, the Wonder Oven is not an all-out, dedicated air fryer – and (something we’ll touch upon later) – is maybe less effective than these other options.
From this perspective, I’d therefore say its price is a bit overinflated. Of course, My Place would argue the cost is due to the fact that the Wonder Oven does more than just air fry – it toasts, reheats, grills and bakes.
It is a clever, diverse and wondrously compact little gadget.
However, I would still suggest you wait until you can get your Our Place Wonder Oven in the sale (something I did).
Is the Wonder Oven Ever on Sale?
Thankfully, yes!
Gleefully, I bought my own Wonder Oven in the Our Place Black Friday sale – scooping it up for £150, thus saving myself near on £50.
I was very pleased with this saving, although once I added the various trays I needed, the price did rise again somewhat (more on this later).
Having had a quick browse of the internet, it looks like the Our Place sales largely take place on Black Friday and Cyber Monday – with all savings happening in November. However, throughout the year, there are smaller discounts to be had. For example, the brand offers a 10% discount code to first-time customers who spend £125 or more.
It’s not much, but it’s something.
What Does the Our Place Wonder Oven Come With?
Aside from paying nearly £200 for the oven itself, what else does the Wonder Oven come with?
Thankfully, a fair few bits – providing you with all the essentials to get cooking. Included in the box is the Wonder Oven, and then a wire rack, a bake pan, air fryer basket and a crumb tray. I’ll be honest, I did find these accessories ridiculously cute – like tiny, kids’ toys, and love how they look on the countertop.
Furthermore, I thought these were actually pretty good quality and the non stick element (one of Our Place’s USPs) was second to none.
However, if you want to do some baking in your Wonder Oven, then you will need to pay more. The company sells a separate Baker’s Kit, which includes a 20.3 cm square pan, 20.3 cm round pan, and 6-cup muffin pan.
Unbelievably, this will set you back a staggering £70.
Considering you can get these trays at a Home Bargains store for under £10, this price does seem ridiculous. However, Our Place have you where they want you – if you want to bake in your miniature 1950s style oven, then you’ll have to purchase any appropriately sized bakeware through them.
Anything bought from elsewhere will simply be too big.
My Honest Review of Our Place Wonder Oven: Is It Worth It?
What I Liked
1. Pretty To Look At
There is no denying it, the Wonder Oven is beautiful. Masterfully combining the ‘kawaii’ trend that swept Asia, with the look of wholesome 1950s America, the Wonder Oven is a wonderful thing to behold.
Compared with the large, bulky air fryers now looming over most kitchens, the Wonder Oven is the Cinderella of kitchen appliances – dainty, unassuming and fetching.
My own tiny oven regularly receives compliments (once visitors have clarified it’s not a child’s device) – particularly due to its compact size and ability to sit under the shelves on my worktop surface.
I opted for the colour ‘spice’, which is more like a soft apricot tone, and it adds a brilliant splash of colour to our kitchen.
Sure, the £195 price tag may be due to this oven’s ‘pretty privilege’, but once you unbox it, you can perhaps understand why.
2. Great for Kids’ Meals
We’ve all been there – you get home from work, or the park, and your kid is starving. It’s a race against time before they have a full meltdown and the oven is taking an absolute age to warm up.
This is where I’ve found the Wonder Oven to be really helpful.
Being able to air fry chips or fish fingers in around 11 minutes has been a complete game-changer for us – and have kept tensions at bay.
However, the positives don’t just stop here.
While an air fryer could just help with this blast-cooking approach, the Wonder Oven can help with many more tasks. It can toast a waffle for your kid in the morning, it can reheat their bowl of pasta once it’s gone cold (as they invariably wander off) and it can bake toddler-made cupcakes in record time.
It’s these small, pretty basic meals and functions, that I think the Wonder Oven really excels at. It gets the job done quickly – and my son loves setting the (fairly loud) ticking timer. In fact, it’s made my famously picky eater son much more interested in cooking, as he has appropriated the Wonder Oven as his own.
3. Great for Small Adult Meals
When January 2025 rolled around, I – like the rest of the world – embarked on a new era of clean eating. Rather than wolfing down giant bowls of pasta for dinner, I would instead be delighting in high protein meals such as salmon and chicken breasts.
I could hardly weight (if you’ll excuse the pun).
Now, the Wonder Oven has definitely helped me stick to this new (slightly bleak) diet. The oven produces an absolutely cracking sticky miso glazed salmon, and cooks chicken breasts quickly and easily. I can also grill vegetables or roast broccoli, while cooking the meat – all without having to turn our costly ‘big oven’ on.
The tidy up is also minimal as the non stick trays wash within seconds and the crumb tray keeps the oven free of mess.
4. Easy to Clean
I don’t know anyone who enjoys cleaning an oven – nobody at all.
It’s a physically exhausting task, filled with grease, mysterious black corpses of food long passed, and (often) lots of nasty chemicals.
By comparison, and something to definitely mention in this honest review of the Wonder Oven, is just how easy it is to clean. It’s a veritable doddle, in fact.
Our Place advice never putting any parts of the Wonder Oven in the dishwasher – not least because it will remove their non stick coating. Instead, simply wash the trays and the oven itself with hot water and soap (using something like a Scrub Daddy).
I tend to wipe my oven down after each use, and it takes less than a minute to get it sparkling clean.
5. More Reliable (and Faster) than a Toaster
One thing I hadn’t expected to use my Wonder Oven for was toasting – however, it’s what I possibly use it for the most.
While I have my own loyal toaster, who I was previously perfectly happy with, using the Wonder Oven has brought to light its downfalls.
I cannot tell you the number of times a pancake, hot cross bun or waffle has been lost to the toaster – smushed at the bottom and left to burn. It is maddening and a waste of baked goods.
The Wonder Oven, however, toasts a hot cross bun to perfection in just a minute – and all without the stress of trying to pop the bun out before it’s lost forever.
When I’m downstairs in the morning making a coffee, I quickly pop pancakes and waffles into the Wonder Oven and they are done before the kettle has even boiled.
6. Excellent Return’s Policy
If you decide that the Wonder Oven isn’t for you, then Our Place offer a 100 day trial and a year long warranty on all their products.
According to reviews, Our Place do stand by this 100 day limit – meaning you can test out the oven for a pretty long time, before deciding whether you actually want to keep it.
My Honest Review of the Our Place Wonder Oven
What I Didn’t Like
So, I have to say, I’m pretty besotted with my Wonder Oven. It is just so handy – particularly when it comes to being able to pop things in to cook, toast, grill or reheat, all at countertop level.
However, this wouldn’t be an honest review of the Wonder Oven if I didn’t mention a few things I wasn’t overly impressed by.
1. Jack of All Trades, Master of None
Unlike an air fryer, the Wonder Oven is not fine-tuned to any one task. Instead, it’s a 6-in-1 product, claiming to undertake a multitude of varying cooking duties.
Immediately, I think this dilutes its competency at any one function. As such, I wouldn’t say it’s the most amazing air fryer, for example. There is only a tiny hole to add water into and whilst it does air fry to a certain extent, I don’t think it’s comparable to the sort of results you would get with a Ninja or Tefal.
Likewise, its diminutive size means that you won’t be throwing a whole meal in there all at once. We have cooked entire chickens a few times in the Wonder Oven, yet there wasn’t any room to cook anything else, simultaneously. This somewhat undermines the function of the two drawer air fryers, that allow you to get an entire meal done quickly and with little fuss (like a Sunday roast).
Instead, we have to put our roast potatoes and vegetables into the main oven. Big meals are therefore a little problematic. Likewise, I did struggle to see the difference between functions such as reheat and grill – and any differences in the food they produced seemed negligible.
In that respect, this 6-in-1 claim seems a little gimmicky, and I’m unsure if it does provide 6 wholly different cooking styles.
2. Timer Seemed Unreliable
Rather than having a digital display, the Our Place Wonder Oven relies on a traditional timer (one that, quite pleasingly, ticks away in the background – before emitting a little ‘bing’ when it’s ready).
I have noticed that this timer is unreliable and the oven actually turns off, with five minutes of cooking time to go. I therefore have to ensure I add on an extra few minutes each time I set it, to make sure it cooks for the full time.
A few times I’ve come back to find my food lying deserted in a dark, cold oven, as the Wonder Oven has simply decided to shutdown, prematurely.
3. Burnt Food (& Burnt Hands)
Likewise, the temperature controls on the Wonder Oven seem a little crude and basic – often resulting in burnt food (particularly when you’re still getting used to the appliance).
There is no denying it – the Our Place Wonder Oven not only heats up fast, but it cooks food – quickly. For such a small little thing, it certainly packs a punch. However, adjusting and taming this heat can be tricky. Unlike some other ovens, you can’t turn off the Wonder Oven’s convection fan and so it does tend to blast out heat rather frantically.
In that respect, it’s a bit of a blunt instrument.
That said, as I’ve used this oven more and more, I’ve cultivated a better understanding of how long everything will take (usually cooking in much less time than I originally anticipated) and have learnt to watch the food a little closer.
One last thing to mention, however, is just how many times I have burnt myself when pulling food from the oven. The trays themselves are quite shallow and I’ve found I’ve had to reach my hand in quite far to get a good grip on the tray. As a result, and due to the small size of the oven, I have regularly burnt my hand, which has proven to be pretty annoying (and painful).
Hopefully they will redesign their trays with a larger lip – meaning you can grip just the front of the tray when removing it.
An Honest Review of the Wonder Oven: Verdict
At nearly £200, the Wonder Oven is quite the investment.
Of course, it is beautiful and its ‘virability’ is a testament to its good looks and TikTok aesthetic. While cooking appliances have long been bulky, ugly and cumbersome, here is an alternative that has taken this new technology and made it, well, pretty.
However, beauty bias aside, does the Wonder Oven actually perform well in the kitchen? Is the Wonder Oven really worth it?
Ultimately, and to conclude this honest review of the Wonder Oven, I would say that this is a beautiful, multifunctional appliance that definitely excels when it comes to convenience and ease of use for small meals. While it’s far from perfect, especially in terms of precise cooking control, its design and versatility make it a valuable addition to the kitchen— ours especially.
I’d say that if aesthetics and countertop space are high priorities of yours, then this oven is honestly a great choice. However, for those looking for a powerhouse air fryer or large-capacity cooker, then you might be a little disappointed.
Despite its minor flaws, however, the Wonder Oven is real joy to use – simplifying daily cooking tasks. With its compact design, easy cleanup, and multi- functionality, I would say it’s a good investment for anyone seeking a pretty, yet practical, kitchen appliance.
For our family, at least, the Wonder Oven has been a real hit.