Mario Batali Salt Cellar

I was excited to find a salt cellar that wasn't going to cost me an arm and a leg. My sister bought one from WS and paid $50 for hers and it only has 1 compartment.

Here are my negative issues:

#1 - I found that it was HUGE. Although I would have been happier if it were smaller, the size was something I could live with.

#2 - The layers were separated from each other making a space large enough for bugs to get in. The cover on my sister's cellar sits FLUSH to the base.

#3 - The magnets did not work. One of the magnets was so far into the wood that it didn't even catch the magnet on the cover.

I thought that with Mario Batali's name on it I would be getting a quality product, however I was mistaken. It's being returned in today's mail.

The cellar has a real heavy weight feel to it and it's made of good quality wood, it has magnets so you only need to push the lid a little bit and the magnet will do the rest for you, it holds a fairly good amount of salt I personally use it to hold coarse and fine sea salts and I love the way it looks near the stove top.


UPDATE APR 27th 2009
I went to a store that carried these cellars and noticed that none of them closed properly and the wood was poor quality, they didn't even have the same color!

I bought mine when it first came out so I guess I was lucky that it was perfect, they probably have a cheaper manufacturer now because the ones I saw were nothing like mine.

I was looking for a simpler salt cellar, but found this two compartment one and decided to give it a try. It's a great price for a good item. The wood isn't as high quality as I would have liked, but for the price, I can't complain. The wood has a bit of a rough finish to it. It's not perfectly smooth. But it still looks and feels great.

My only complaint would be that it's a bit too heavy and unwieldy to operate by picking it up with one hand. While manuevering a pinch of salt from the cellar to your food isn't something that requires a licensed degree to perform, it is kind of annoying sometimes if I drop a few crystals along the way. A more mobile cellar might help to avoid this very minor problem. Just something to think about depending on your preferences.

The bottom is almost half all wood. I assume it's this way to create more weight and lower it's center of gravity. When you take the top compartment and swing it 180 degrees around so it's...Read more