A restaurant-quality pizza can be hard to replicate in your own kitchen, let alone garden. Proper pizza usually needs a massive, wood-fired brick oven that’s beyond most budgets. Enter the domestic pizza oven. Thanks to compact portable designs that cook in minutes, easy to use outdoor pizza ovens are now readily available and you can have your own taste of Italy that’s indistinguishable from the real thing.
Because they cook at such a high temperature, you can have restaurant-quality pizza in only a minute. It’s just the thing if you have a few guests over – it’s a brilliant party trick to quickly turn out some of the best pizza this side of Naples in your own back garden.
Best pizza ovens at a glance
- Best Buy: Dellonda Portable Wood-Fired 14-inch Pizza Oven
- Best Buy: Ooni Koda 16 Pizza Oven
- Best Buy: Ooni Karu 16 Pizza Oven
- Best Buy: Ooni Koda 12 Pizza Oven
- Best Buy: Gozney Roccbox Pizza Oven
- Igneus Classico Pizza Oven
- Fresh Grills Premium Pizza Oven
We tested a range of portable, wood- and gas- fired pizza ovens, teaming up with our colleagues at BBC Good Food to ensure our tests were as accurate, fair and useful as possible. With their culinary knowledge and our reviewing expertise we’ve found the best pizza ovens for every garden.
Each review has a detailed list of pros and cons for clarity and has been rated according to ease of use, handling, performance and value for money. We’ve tested 16 pizza ovens, but only the standout appliances have made our list, so you can buy with confidence.
For extra help with pizzas, take a look at BBC Good Food’s recipes for easy margheritas, pizza dough, and pizza sauce. If you’re entertaining, check out our tests of the best charcoal barbecues and the best gas barbecues, also in collaboration with BBC Good Food. To get your patio ready for guests, take a look at our tests of the best solar lights, or our guides to outdoor furniture, parasols, and hammocks.
Jump to:
- How does a pizza oven work?
- What can you cook in a pizza oven?
- How much is a pizza oven?
- Best Buy pizza ovens
- The best of the rest
How does a pizza oven work?
A domestic pizza oven is a small oven that sits on a stand or a garden table and cooks traditional pizza. There are three main fuels for a pizza oven. The first is wood, usually wood pellets, for an authentic flame-cooked taste. They can also run off gas, or use the heat of a charcoal or gas barbecue.
There are three main types of pizza oven:
Portable pizza ovens
The classic domestic pizza oven – you might have heard of Ooni or Gozney, which specialise in these. They’re small enough to sit on a garden table while you cook, and then to be stored in a shed. They should be light enough to move around the garden easily, as and when you need them and small enough to store.
Barbecue-top pizza ovens
As basic as it gets. These handy stones or boxes sit on top of a grill and use the heat from your barbecue to cook. They’re great for turning out a pizza alongside burgers and sausages. However, because they mostly cook from the bottom up, they’re not as fast as full pizza ovens, and can be trickier to master. We’ve stuck to classic portable pizza ovens in this article, but check out BBC Good Food’s review of the La Hacienda BBQ pizza oven for more information.
Freestanding pizza ovens
These built-in ovens are big and expensive. Think of the oven at the back of a pizzeria – a brick or clay oven designed to cook lots of pizza very quickly. They look impressive as part of an outdoor kitchen but will cost you thousands of pounds.
What can you cook in a pizza oven?
You aren’t limited to pizza. The high temperatures in a pizza oven are just the thing for quick homemade flatbreads like roti, naan, pitta and tortilla. You can also quickly cook nachos, jacket potatoes, melanzane, sea bass, and baked camembert. Nor are you limited to savoury foods – you can also have a go at cinnamon rolls or tarte tatin.
How much is a pizza oven?
Prices vary depending on the type of pizza oven. For the average-sized table top pizza oven, set aside £300-600. Barbecue-top pizza ovens will set you back £40-£100, and you’ll have to fork out £1,000-£2,000 for top-line dual-fuel pizza ovens.
In every review we award outstanding products our coveted Best Buy award. To see these and the others we recommend, browse our pick of the best pizza ovens.
Best pizza ovens on test in 2022
Best Buy pizza ovens
Dellonda Portable Wood-Fired 14-inch Pizza Oven
RRP: £179.98
Our rating: 4.75
Pros
- Fantastic value
- Long, safe handles
- Delicious pizza
- High quality parts
Cons
- Hot exterior
- Needs lots of fuel
- Short warranty
The Dellonda Portable Wood-Fired 14-inch Pizza Oven is a BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine Best Buy winner for the best value pizza oven, thanks to its low RRP and included pizza peel. This compact, stylish tabletop pizza oven is fuelled by charcoal or sustainable hardwood pellets. Despite its remarkably low price it feels high-quality. The pizza peel offers space for a 12 inch pizza, and all of its handles are long and wooden to keep your hands away from hot metal. Though it’s a large pizza oven, the legs flip down and you could easily store the chimney inside. You can also buy this model with a storage case to keep it rust-free and take it on the go. It made delicious pizza with a well browned underside and golden, bubbled cheese. Crucially, it also created very little smoke, so this is a good oven to use if you live on a terrace and don’t want to annoy your neighbours.
Though it’s easy and safe to add fuel thanks to the long handles, we found that the exterior of this pizza oven gets very hot. It took half an hour to cool down, and though the heat distribution is quite good it’s noticeably hotter on one side. We also discovered that this oven isn’t as efficient as others on test, as you need to keep it topped up with pellets throughout the entire cooking process. It also has a short warranty of only a year.
Buy the Dellonda Portable Wood-Fired 14-inch Pizza Oven from Amazon and Dellonda
Ooni Koda 16 Pizza Oven
RRP: £499.99
Our rating: 4.5 out of 5
- Buy now from Ooni (£499), Lakeland (£499), John Lewis (£499), and Selfridges (£500)
Pros:
- Quick to assemble
- Huge capacity
- Perfect pizzas
- High quality materials
Cons:
- Need to pay extra for essential tools
Ooni is the most famous brand in the pizza oven industry, and the Koda 16 wins a BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine Best Buy award for the best pizza oven for big families. This gas-powered pizza oven has an enormous capacity, which means you can cook a whopping dustbin lid pizza of up to 16 inches. Despite this size we cooked a simple margherita in just 60 seconds. This is thanks to the unique L-shaped flame, which covers the whole pizza and makes for the best pizza on test – a perfect Neapolitan pizza with charred bubbles in the crust, and wonderfully golden mozzarella. It’s incredibly easy to use and is ready to light in just five minutes out of the box. Once you attach the oven to your gas source it’s as quick and easy to use as switching on a hob, and you can precisely control the temperature, which can reach a blistering 500 Celsius after 20 minutes. If you register your oven with Ooni you can get a three-year warranty, too.
However, we have two quibbles with the design. The first is that this pizza oven has a relatively shallow opening, which is fine for pizza but you could struggle with other dishes. The second is that there’s no thermometer on the pizza oven itself. Crucially, bear in mind that not only is this oven expensive, but you will need to pay £100 extra for a matching pizza peel, thermometer and cover.
Buy the Ooni Koda 16 from Ooni, Lakeland, John Lewis, and Selfridges
Ooni Karu 16 Pizza Oven
RRP: £699
Our rating: 4.5/5
Pros:
- 16-inch” capacity
- Quick to assemble
- Digital thermometer
- Glass door
- High quality materials
Cons:
- Price
- Peel not included
Ooni’s newest offering is the Karu 16, which has similar features to the Koda 16 while fixing some of the problems outlined above. Awarded a BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine Best Buy for the best premium pizza oven, the Karu 16 cooks 16-inch pizzas in just 60 seconds and runs off wood fuel. It can also be fuelled by gas if you buy the gas burner. Simple to light, it reaches cooking temperature in 15 minutes compared to the 25 minutes we found for the Koda 16. It has several marked improvements from its predecessor. Unlike the Koda 16, it has a digital thermometer, so you can cook remarkably precisely, as well as a tall, glass door, so it’s easy to add your pizza and see exactly how it’s cooking. Like the Koda 16, the Karu 16 cooks some of the best pizza on test, creating beautiful, mottled Neapolitan pizza.
However, when adding up the scores, we were surprised to find that, despite these improvements, the Karu 16 only equals the Koda 16. This is because of our scoring for value for money. The extra £200 you’ll pay for a Karu 16 is eye-watering, particularly in the current climate. If you want it to run on gas, you’ll need to shell out. These issues with value are furthered by the central problem with all Ooni products on test, which is that it doesn’t come with a pizza peel, which is crucial for cooking a pizza.
Buy the Ooni Karu 16 from Ooni, Lakeland, John Lewis, and Amazon
Ooni Koda 12 Pizza Oven
RRP: £299.99
Our rating: 4.5 out of 5
- Buy now from Ooni (£299), Lakeland (£299), John Lewis (£299), and Selfridges (£300)
Pros:
- Lightweight
- Portable
- Collapsible legs
- Good price
Cons:
- Tricky to turn pizza
- Missing essential pizza peel and thermometer
If the 16-inch pizza capacity offered by the Koda 16 is over-kill, check out its smaller, less expensive sibling. A BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine Best Buy winner for the best pizza oven for couples, we found that the gas-powered Koda 12 has the same advantages as the 16, but in a more compact appliance. It’s easy to set up and use, just flip out the legs and attach the pizza stone and gas canister. The Heat control dial means it’s easy to control, and the flame burner that runs along the back of the oven makes for delicious, flame-cooked picture-perfect pizzas. For £200 less than the 16, it’s worth considering if you aren’t feeding a crowd. However, the caveats of the Koda 16 apply here, too. There’s no thermometer on this oven, and you’ll have to shell out extra for the essential pizza peel. We also found that because it’s smaller than the Koda 16, it’s a little harder to put your pizza in and turn it so that it cooks evenly.
Buy the Ooni Koda 12 from Ooni, Lakeland, John Lewis, and Selfridges
Gozney Roccbox Pizza Oven
RRP: £399
Our rating: 4.25/5
Pros:
- Easy set-up
- Excellent pizza
- Five-year warranty
Cons:
- Small oven space
- Weight
- Big footprint
If you’re new to homemade pizza, check out the Gozney Roccbox. This BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine Best Buy winner is best for beginners as it’s ready to go straight from the box. It’s utterly foolproof – it hits temperature in 20 minutes and it has an inbuilt thermometer so you always know if you’re at the right temperature. It also comes with a pizza peel. This means that anyone can achieve a truly restaurant-quality pizza. The matte silicon shell means the exterior is a lot cooler than other ovens here, so it’s safer too. If you want a wood-fired pizza, you can also buy this pizza oven as a dual-fuel version, giving you the option of cooking with either gas or wood fuel. We love the remarkably high-quality materials of this oven, and the generous five-year warranty.
However, bear in mind that this is a pretty hefty oven, weighing in at 20kg – it’s not particularly portable, though Gozney claims it is. £399 is towards the more expensive end of the market for tabletop ovens, and it has quite a small oven space for the size, because, though it has a larger footprint than the Koda 12, it also only goes up to 12” pizzas.
Buy the Gozney Roccbox from Gozney and Amazon
The best of the rest
Although some models didn’t quite achieve a BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine Best Buy award, they still have great features that make them worth recommending. Browse our pick of the best of the rest on test.
Igneus Classico Pizza Oven
RRP: £875
Our rating: 4/5
Pros:
- Large cooking area
- Cooks two pizzas at once
- Thermometer included
- High quality materials
Cons:
- Price
- Warranty
- Essentials not included
With a whopping 24 x 24-inch internal area, this beast will tackle two 12-inch pizzas at once. The BBC Good Food team reckon that you can do an entire roast in the Igneus Classico, so if you’re getting the whole clan together for a family reunion, this is the oven for you. It’s high-quality, and has an inbuilt thermometer marked with the perfect temperature range of 350°C to 410°C, so you’ll always know if you’re at the right temperature for your pizza. It made beautiful pizzas, and it’s easy to insert, turn, and remove them thanks to the roomy capacity.
However, this is a very big appliance. With all four of the pizza stones loaded it comes in at a weighty 45kg. It’s also one of the most expensive pizza ovens we tested, and the most expensive in this article. Despite this big price, it only has a year’s warranty, and like the Ooni products featured in this article, it doesn’t come with essential accessories like a pizza peel.
Buy the Igneus Classico from Igneus
Fresh Grills Premium Pizza Oven
RRP: £299.99
Our rating: 4/5
Pros:
- Good for storage
- Long handles
- Includes peel and case
Cons:
- Needs lots of fuel
- Logo cutout lets out some of the heat
- Slow to heat
- Poorly designed door
The Fresh Grills Premium Pizza Oven is just right for new pizzaiolos to entertain. Though it has a big footprint, this oven is excellent for storage. The legs are foldable and the chimney is removable for easy storage in winter. It sits high off the table, which is a good safety feature to avoid injuries. The handles are long, to keep you safe from hot metal, and it also comes with a convenient carry case and pizza peel. We loved that it produces very little smoke and it made some of the tastiest pizzas on test. It has a two-year warranty.
However, we found that there were a few drawbacks in the design. We found a lip in the door where you could easily snag your wrist, and the screws to attach the handle and thermometer stick through the back of the door, so you could catch yourself on those, too. The logo on the door is cut-out, rather than printed. While it looks fantastic to see the flames flickering through the logo, it lets a lot of heat out – this grill took 45 minutes to get to temperature and needed a lot of fuel. This cut-out logo is also on the pizza peel, and we found that delicate dough could snag on this, too.
Buy the Fresh Grills Premium Pizza Oven from Amazon and The Range
How we tested pizza ovens
We tested a range of portable pizza ovens, fuelled by gas, wood, or heat from a barbecue. Using BBC Good Food’s basic pizza dough recipe on test and the manufacturers’ instructions, we built and used each oven exactly as you would in your garden. We also tested with different pizza recipes where oven capacity allowed for this.
The ovens were assessed according to the following criteria with equal marks attributed to each:
- Assembly and storage: Looked at the ease of assembly and clarity of instructions and how long it took to build the oven. We also noted any storage features and how easy it was to pack up and put away.
- Ease of use: Pizzas require incredibly high temperatures to cook so we looked for excellent insulation and safety features to make the pizza oven easy to use. We assessed how quickly we could get cooking, how easy it is to add and control fuel and how quickly the oven cooled down. We also looked at the portability of the ovens.
- Cooking results: The ultimate criteria, this assessed the look, texture, and taste of the pizzas.
- Value for money: Considered all of the above, including quality, design, any special features, plus RRP and warranty.
This review was last updated in June 2022. We apologise if anything has changed in price or availability.
