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The world's best pizza ovens are no longer reserved for only the world's best pizza restaurants. Hell, your own home can be the next greatest pizzeria in the neighborhood, and it's all thanks to a new wave of at-home outdoor ovens that promise top-tier pies minus the years of apprenticing with a guy named Mario. Homemade pizza is more than just a delicious way to skip the Domino's delivery tonight—half the fun is getting the food on the dinner table every night. Like pepperoni on your pie? Go ahead and toss it on. Want to finally give pineapple on pizza a try? Gross, but by all means, do it (and keep it away from us). And best of all, there's no pizza police monitoring what you cook in there. Steaks, breads, and vegetables are all on the table, and, in a way, these are really just the finest outdoor ovens. But we're digging too deep into the sauce now. Below, the best pizza ovens to bring to your home, all endorsed by experts.
The pies can't come out of the oven fast enough! Oh wait, you don't have a pizza oven yet. Shop our top picks here.
You definitely don't need a pizza oven, but it's sure a nice thing to have. The reason why your home oven-baked pizzas don't come out as great as your local pizza joint's is because the conventional oven just doesn't get hot enough. Also, you don't get that same wood-fired taste, which might be desirable for some true ‘za aficionados. The term “pizza oven” is also a huge misnomer—you can really make anything in one of these so-called pizza ovens from vegetables to flatbreads to meats. Because of a pizza oven's ability to reach hellish temperatures (well, conservatively if you're thinking of a real inferno, 900 degrees Fahrenheit), they're also excellent at gettting dinner on the table quickly.
“I think there’s a misconception that using an outdoor pizza oven requires a whole production and it’ll take hours to make food,” Molly Allen, a former bakery owner, recipe developer, and food journalist, says. “However, I’ve found that this has been my solution for when I need a last-minute, quick dinner.” Allen likes to keep frozen balls of pizza dough on hand so she can pull one out to defrost, and then all she has to do is preheat the pizza oven and gather her toppings to get a quick lunch or dinner prepped.
It'll take time to get the kinks worked out (singed the crust this time? Better luck next time), but once you have the dough down, you'll be slinging pies in no time. And as Allen says: “even an ugly pizza is still a delicious pizza.” So, no, you don't need a pizza oven, but you didn't need that sous vide circulator either, now did you?
If all pizza ovens were built the same, then we wouldn't need to help you find the best pizza oven. Everyone's going to need different things from the one they buy, so here's how to figure out which is best for you.
Gas: As with grills, gas is probably the easiest fuel to deal with. You connect your grill—or in this case, your pizza oven—to propane, let that baby fire up, and you can adjust the temperature at your will. These are cleaner than wood- or charcoal-fueled pizza ovens because there's no messy debris to get rid of after your cooking session, though in the case of a lot of the options on this list, the gas-powered option usually comes at an extra cost.
Wood: Whether you're going with pellets or actual slabs of wood, you're going to get that highly desirable smoked flavor that so many pizza enthusiasts crave. If you're looking to make a Neapolitan pizza, you'll need to cook that baby with wood (if the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana has anything to say about it). And these give you the ability to infuse different kinds of wood flavor whether you're into hickory, maple, or applewood. It takes quite a bit of work to cook with wood because you'll have to replace the fuel regularly as it's burned away, and getting your oven to temp isn't as easy as working with gas.
Charcoal: For smokey flavor minus the wood flavor, let charcoal be the way you cook your pies. It's just as messy to clean as wood and requires frequent maintenance, but it's a little easier to get going than wood.
Electric: Plug that bad boy in and get cooking. A new wave of electric pizza ovens makes it easy to cook pizzas inside or outside, but they don't get quite as hot as pizza ovens fueled by the above fuel options. These are convenient, but in the case of our pick for the best electric indoor pizza oven, they can cost you quite a bit.
You will not be running a real pizzeria with one of these pizza ovens. Most of them can barely accommodate a 12-inch pizza, and you can only cook one at a time. Since it takes at least 15 minutes to bake up a pizza, you're also going to have to make sure your customers, er, friends and family have something else to nosh on while their pies cook. Brands like Ooni make their ovens in multiple sizes, but know that you'll have to shell out more for that bigger real estate.
As we said, conventional home ovens don't get hot enough to properly cook a pizza pie. Depending on the pizza oven you buy, you'll hit temperatures anywhere between 600 degrees and 900 degrees Fahrenheit. An insulated body and well-regulated airflow will make sure that pizza oven can get hot and stay hot, while the type of fuel you choose will dictate how hot you can get.
Now, the best pizza ovens to cook up all the pies on the fly.
Solo Stove Pi pizza oven
Fuel: Wood, charcoal, gas ($100 extra) Max Temperature: 850°F Weight: 30.5 pounds Dimensions: 20.5 x 15.1 inches
You'll probably recognize the Solo Stove brand for its range of smokeless fire pits, and the Pi is one of its more recent products in the cookware space. It's fueled by wood or charcoal, though the additional $100 gas burner makes the Pi super versatile. “There’s a learning curve to cooking with wood and it requires a bit more attention, both while feeding the flame and cooking a pizza,” Allen says, who adds that the gas attachment allows you to hook up the pizza oven to a regular propane tank, just like a barbecue, “making it that much easier to get started and to control temperature.”
The Pi is a scorcher (boasting temperatures up to 850 degrees Fahrenheit), and it does so in around 15 to 20 minutes, which is way faster and much hotter than your at-home oven. As Allen does at home, you can prep your toppings while the thing is getting up to temperature. The pizza oven's flame burns in the back, and Allen says it's hard to actually burn pies in there, especially since it utilizes Solo Stove's innovative method of channeling airflow. It's also super portable so you can bring it to your next tailgate or camping trip.
Fuel: Wood, gas Max Temperature: 950°F Weight: 44 pounds Dimensions: 16.3 x 21.0 x 18.6 inches
Before Gozney started making at-home pizza ovens, the brand specialized in ones made for professional restaurants. With that knowledge of making pizzas (and pizza ovens) for commercial settings, Gozney created the Roccbox for at-home pizzaiolos. “They took the important components from the great industrial wood fire ovens and added them to Gozney's [at-home pizza oven] design—things like amazing heat retention and the ability to use gas or wood," says Frank Pinello, the founder of Best Pizza in Brooklyn, New York.
Unlike other pizza ovens that offer gas compatibility for a surcharge, Gozney includes it in the price (though it is on the more expensive side to begin with). The Roccbox heats up quickly and can achieve temperatures up to 950 degrees Fahrenheit, whether you're using wood or gas. Everything about the Roccbox, in terms of design, is to make sure that the pizza oven gets hot and stays hot—from the dense insulation surrounding the body to the flame that starts at the back and flows upward and outward. And despite the crazy-hot temperatures, the external silicone jacket keeps the body cool to the touch.
Fuel: Electric Max Temperature: 750°F Weight: 37.5 pounds Dimensions: 18.5 x 18.3 x 10.8 inches
Breville doesn't hold back when it pushes out a kitchen appliance, and for years, its Pizzaiolo has been the go-to for those who want an indoor pizza oven that'll pump out pretty exceptional pies. Natalie DeSabato, founder of Traze, a pop-up “pizza lab," uses a fleet of the Pizzaiolos to make her highly covetable pies. She recommends the Breville pizza oven to home cooks because “it gives you even, amazing bakes, lots of temperature control, and it’s super simple to use and clean.” As a bonus, DeSabato appreciates the fact that the exterior “only gets a bit hot” despite interior temps of up to 750 degrees, so it's safe to use around curious kids and pets.
Convenience is key for the Pizzaiolo because it plugs into a standard 120 volt outlet, and with pre-settings for various styles of pizzas (including frozen), it's hard to screw up no matter what you're cooking. For someone with a little more experience tossing up pies, there's even a manual mode that can help cooks fuss with the areas the heat is hitting, whether it's to brown the crust or cook it more in the middle. "All in all, the Breville’s an incredible and reliable pizza oven," DeSabato vouches.
Fuel: Electric Max Temperature: 700°F Weight: 32.4 pounds Dimensions: 21.5 x 18.0 x 15.1 inches
Ninja's Woodfire line of grills isn't new, but its new electric version of the Woodfire is fresh out of the oven. It's an eight-in-one outdoor oven that, while powered by electricity, has the option to take specially designed wood pellets to infuse wood flavor in your pie without actually having to deal with wood (or the ensuing mess). What might surprise most folks is that there is no flame to the Woodfire—it's all electric, and temperature control is impeccable and accurate. It maxes out at 700 degrees Fahrenheit, and comes with eight pre-settings—pizza, max roast, specialty roast, broil, bake, smoker, dehydrate and keep warm—for simple cooking.
Kristen Kish—Top Chef's season 10 winner and owner of Arlo Grey in Austin, Texas—helped to develop recipes for the Woodfire electric oven, and lauded the grill's ability to be a set-it-and-forget-it kitchen appliance, saying it's as “simple as using a microwave.” Put in whatever you're cooking, set the Woodfire to go, and it'll let you know when your food's ready to eat. It's so fast and accurate in cooking that Kish says she once didn't believe the Woodfire was actually done cooking and ended up burning her food. And because of the option to infuse wood flavor into foods, the Woodfire can actually help replicate the flavor of real barbecue without the whole barbecuing aspect, Kish adds.
Ooni Karu 12 multi-fuel pizza oven (with gas burner)
Fuel: Wood, charcoal, gas ($100 extra) Max Temperature: 950°F Weight: 44 pounds Dimensions: 19.8 x 13.7 x 29.1 inches
Founded in 2012, Ooni has become one of the most well-known brands in the pizza oven market following a successful launch on Kickstarter. It offers a wide range of pizza ovens that are each optimized to work with a specific type of fuel. Ooni's Karu is a little more flexible, though, since it works with both wood, charcoal, and (for $100 more) gas—which is why we anointed it with a win in this year's GQ Home Awards. And unlike Solo Stove, Ooni offers multiple sizes for its pizza ovens, denoted by the numeral after the model name—so “12” or “16,” depending on the size in inches that each oven can accommodate.
Josh Pugmire, co-founder of Utah-based Puggy's Pizza, uses Ooni Karus for his pizza-making operation and owns three of the Karu 16s. “I love how convenient and reliable they are, plus easy to transport, move, and store," says Pugmire, who notes that they’re about half the weight of the Gozney halfdome, and exceptionally portable for the price. The Karu 16 also has a few features that are not a part of the Karu 12, like a built-in thermometer and glass door. A key feature of the Ooni—both the Karu 12 and 16—is its large chimney that draws heat, making it slightly more clunky than the Solo Stove Pi. But if you want less bulk overall, you can easily remove the chimney to transport it. Pugmire notes that he uses propane a majority of the time, and highly recommends that shoppers shell out the extra $100 for the gas attachment, which he says “works amazingly well for the price."
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