The new Our Place appliances look like toys. It has to be said. The Wonder Oven—its toaster oven–slash–air fryer hybrid—gives major “Easy-Bake Oven, But for Grown-Ups” vibes, and the Dream Cooker looks like an Instant Pot designed for the Barbie movie. Given the brand’s status as a viral cookware hit factory, none of this is surprising. On-trend colorways and chic matte finishes are things I’ve come to expect from Our Place. But high-performing appliances? I was skeptical.
I’m very slowly renovating the kitchen in my house, which means I currently don’t have a functional stove. I figured that the combined powers of the Dream Cooker and the Wonder Oven could keep my two-person household fed while we debated the merits of paint swatches and stove brands, but I wasn’t expecting to have my mind blown.
I was wrong.
The Dream Cooker
I was an early-adopter of the Instant Pot, and I loved it for making things like last-minute pressure-cooked pork shoulders, beans and grains I forgot to soak the night before, and big batches of homemade yogurt. But like many other home cooks, my Instant Pot obsession gradually wore off. I’m not ashamed to admit that a huge part of this is the fact that Instant Pots are the opposite of aesthetically pleasing.
The Our Place Dream Cooker solves that very real (to me) problem. This little multi-cooker is so sleek, it doesn’t have a single button. Instead, there’s an LED touchscreen that only lights up when it’s in use.
Okay, so I didn't want to hide this in a cabinet. But could it actually perform? My go-to pressure cooker recipe is a short rib osso buco, so I gathered my ingredients and got cooking.
I was instantly surprised by how well the sear function on the Dream Cooker worked. While I had to work entirely too hard to brown a piece of meat in the Instant Pot’s stainless-steel pot, I got a restaurant-quality crust from the Dream Cooker’s nonstick surface, and after 40 minutes on the pressure cook setting, the short ribs fell right off the bone. I was able to reduce the sauce in around 10 minutes. To say I was gobsmacked is not an exaggeration.
Unlike the Instant Pot, the Dream Cooker doesn’t rely on a ton of presets. It only has four modes: pressure cook, slow cook, saute/sear, or keep warm. But this stripped down set of functions actually makes it more versatile, as weird as that sounds, because you aren’t tempted to rely on presets and the preset sort of food they make. Everything will come out the way you want it instead of the way the manufacturer of your multi-cooker thinks it should be. While this requires a bit more knowledge of the basics of pressure-cooking and slow-cooking than say, pressing the Poultry button on the Instant Pot, I liked it much better.
I tried my best to find something the Dream Cooker couldn’t do well. I made applesauce with the slow cooker function, cooked Japgokbap that I had forgotten to soak, pressure-cooked a whole chicken (then crisped the skin in the Wonder Oven). It was easy to clean, too, and I never had to pull it out of a cabinet or down from a high shelf, because the Spice colorway I chose looked really good with my freshly painted pistachio cabinets.
After a week, my Instant Pot Duo was out on the sidewalk with a FREE sign taped to it.
The Wonder Oven
Unlike the Dream Cooker’s slick shell, the Wonder Oven looks like it came straight from a Toys “R” Us. But according to the brand, this thing could Air Fry, Bake, Roast, Toast, Broil, and Reheat. It also features a steam infusion option and allegedly doesn’t require preheating.
For my first test, I decided to toss the Wonder Oven a softball. I am deeply obsessed with Snow Days healthyish Pizza Bites, which are like if Totino’s pizza rolls actually tasted good and contained nutrients instead of just being quick and comforting. My old CRUXGG toaster oven–slash–air fryer hybrid would consistently burn the outsides while leaving the interiors still frozen, so I was curious to see how the Wonder Oven would do. I popped them in the air fryer basket, and eight minutes later I was eating the platonic ideal of a pizza roll. The outsides were delightfully crisp and positively golden, and the interior was pure cheesy, saucy goo.
Fine, I thought. I’ll try something harder. I quartered a recipe for “Crusty French Loaves” from The Tassajara Bread Book. Surely, a toaster oven this inexpensive couldn’t handle homemade bread. Wrong again. I was able to fit four personal-size loaves on the nonstick baking sheet. The steam infusion setting worked its magic, and I had bread that looked and tasted better than some loaves I’ve baked in my full-size oven.
I pressure-cooked a whole chicken just to see if the roast setting on the Wonder Oven could crisp up the skin: Yes. Air-fried chicken wings? Perfect. I baked scones, Christmas cookies, and an entire pie. You’d never guess I made them in a little peach-colored cube.
My only qualm with the Wonder Oven is the claim about preheating and the lack of a live temperature display. You basically have to trust that the temperature setting you choose when you twist the dial is accurate, and I am not a trusting person. So I used an oven thermometer, and while I found that it did come to temp pretty quickly, it varied by around 10 degrees in either direction, and did require five to 10 minutes to get to really high temperatures. So the no preheating claim is not exactly true. How much that mattered depended on what I was cooking. With something like bread, it matters a lot. With pizza rolls? An approximate temperature was fine.
The Verdict
When I posted photos of my new Our Place appliances on my Instagram stories, I was flooded with DMs from people asking me if they actually worked. A few people begged me not to say anything good about them because they were already fighting the “add to cart” temptation solely based on appearances. I almost hate to say it, but if you’re going to buy a multi-cooker and/or a toaster oven–slash–air fryer, buy these. The Dream Cooker is about as close to perfect as it gets, and while the Wonder Oven isn’t flawless, it honestly can replace a full-size home oven in a pinch. They might look like dollhouse accessories, but these are serious appliances that can hold their own against ones that cost twice as much—and aren’t nearly as adorable.