Is This $103 Titanium Cheese Grater The Ultimate Kitchen Tool?

Warren Simpson is the man behind the Titanium Cheese Grater, a Kickstarter project that has people rejoicing and has raised over $71,000 (significantly more than the original $3,570 goal).

Simpson, a New Zealand-based designer and machinist, wanted to create the last cheese grater you will ever buy after years of buying — and hating — various models of the traditional box grater. "Over the course of my life I grudgingly used an ordinary, everyday 'box' grater," Simpson explains in his Kickstarter pitchwhich was brought to our attention by a post on the tech blog Mashable. "Every time I used it I just accepted the fact I'd have... a big, clunky  grater that was painfully difficult to clean... a whole load of mess to clean up... an additional dirty plate... and a good chance I was going cut my fingers!"

Simpson designed his titanium grater with a list of strict restrictions that would combat his annoyances and make grating cheese an effortless procedure.

It had to grate directly onto ones food (eliminating any need for a second plate whose sole purpose is to hold the cheese as it is grated. It had to be effortless to clean, built to last a lifetime, reduce the risk of cutting fingers, and (most importantly to Simpson) it had to allow for a small amount of cheese to be grated at a time, eliminating the palaver of box grating when all you really want is a small amount of grated cheese.

The finished product is a sleek, elegant and modern design. It is dishwasher-safe and boasts an ergonomic handle available in both left- and right-handed versions.

Simpson has been very successful with past Kickstarter projects, having designed and produced a peeler and cheese slicer that have both received rave reviews from customers.

The Titanium Cheese Grater is lovely to look at and is a great tool for grating cheese at the table or in small quantities. Since there's only one set of sharp grates, it is rather limiting (do you really want giant shards of Parmesan in your pasta?) and if you wanted to actually grate large quantities of anything (potatoes for latkes, cheese for mac and cheese, etc.), your hand would probably tire fairly quickly without the support a box grater offers when placed squarely on a tabletop.

The price tag in something else well worth considering; at roughly $103 (NZD $140), it definitely should be the last grater you need to purchase! Compare it to a microplane — which can be bought for $9.00 online, comes in many different sizes, and similarly frees one from the ties of a box grater — and it begins to look more and more like a beautiful piece of design (which it is, Simpson makes each piece himself) rather than a hardworking staple among kitchen tools.

Daisy Nichols is the Cook editor at The Daily Meal. She lives in NYC with her cat Merlin and swears her maple syrup habit is totally under control. You can follow her on Instagram @bestbird.