Boss Hunting
The 12 Best Pizza Ovens In Australia Right Now

The 12 Best Pizza Ovens In Australia Right Now

By Chris Singh

7 June 2024 · 14 min read

Even with a pizza stone and conventional oven, it doesn't quite come close to producing the authentic taste of a slice cooked by a purpose-built flame. Fortunately for us, the best pizza ovens available in Australia are more than up to the task.

Regardless of whether you're looking for an outdoor pizza oven, a multi-fuel pizza oven, a gas pizza oven, or even an electric pizza oven — we've got you covered.



BH Approved: Our Favourite Pizza Oven On The Market

The Gozney Dome Oven is one of the latest pizza ovens from the famed brand, and it was so ridiculously successful upon release that it had to suspend sales in less than a day.

Reportedly, Gozney made over $10 million in sales in just eight hours — demand obviously driven by the fact that this may be the single greatest pizza oven for backyards.

The Gozney Dome is offered as a single or dual fuel option, either as wood-fired alone or wood-fired plus an option to use gas. In my opinion, if you're going to invest this much money, it's better to opt for dual fuel.

The gas is much simpler to operate and gives users what is essentially the same result when cooking pizza. It's also easy to control the temperatures if you're using the Dome more like a traditional oven for baking bread or cooking at lower temperatures.

You'll find that the Dome can produce crispier crusts than the Roccbox and some of the other wood-fired ovens on this list.

I would also highly recommend the optional stand: it's very handy for storage and can be wheeled around, which is great if you have a large deck or outdoor space and entertaining.

James from our team has owned the Dome for over 12 months and has written one of the most comprehensive reviews on the web, which you can read here.

Specifications:

  • Single or dual fuel options
  • Weight: 58 kg
  • Height: 55 cm
  • Depth: 79 cm
  • Width: 68 cm

We like the Gozney Dome so much that we included it in our highly-rated Best Gifts For Men guide.


The Best Pizza Ovens In Australia (2024 Guide)

Ooni Karu 16

In the world of consumer pizza ovens, Ooni is by far the best-known brand alongside kitchen mainstays like Breville and UK oven specialists Gozney.

The Ooni Karu 16 is, to our knowledge, the first and only pizza oven to be recommended for domestic use by the highly authoritative Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana.

Like the legendary (and affordable) Ooni Karu 12, the Ooni Karu 16 isn't just a wood-fired oven. It's multi-fuel, meaning you can cook with charcoal, wood logs, and — if you've picked up the separately sold Ooni burner — gas.

Although wood fire ovens are almost always the preference when it comes to puffing up a perfect Naples-style pizza, due to the subtle flavouring from the wood and rolling flames, having the option to experiment with different methods is definitely a strong point.

Thanks to a new design, which now uses a hinged full glass oven door design with ViewFlame technology, the Ooni Karu 16 benefits from better temperature control and improved insulation. This helps the chamber reach a boss level of 500°C in 15 minutes. Theoretically, you could pump out a perfectly crisp 16-inch pizza in around 60 seconds without horrifying any of your Italian mates.

Other separately sold features include a mounted digital thermometer that displays internal oven temperature. You've also got, all things considered, a fairly portable body weighing approximately 28.4kg. It ain't light, but not as heavy as you'd expect from one of the greatest pizza ovens on the market.

Given the uptick in size, the Ooni Karu 16 pizza oven can also be used to cook up a great variety of other things, from flame-grilled steaks to fresh bread, making it an easy essential if you're building an outdoor kitchen for entertaining, or if you're set on taking this to the next camping trip.


La Hacienda BBQ Pizza Oven

The La Hacienda BBQ Pizza Oven is a bit different to the other pizza ovens you'll find on this list, simply because you can't use it as a freestanding appliance. You'll need a big enough BBQ to sit under this ready-to-use pizza chamber. Simply put the La Hacienda on top, but make sure your BBQ is big enough to fit the 40cm by 35cm add-on first.

The benefit of this is that the La Hacienda BBQ Pizza Oven is more like a truly portable attachment for your existing BBQ, with the housing channelling the heat around the pizza so that the top and the base cook evenly, swirling around that dough to make efficiently cooking pizza that much easier. Having one of these in the back pocket will be extremely helpful if you want to turn those backyard BBQs into Naples-level pizza parties.

The solid La Hacienda BBQ Pizza Oven can fit neatly over your BBQ top grate and uses whatever heating elements your BBQ uses to fire it all up. There's a dial on the oven that indicates the temperature, splitting it between Warm, Ideal, and Hot. "Ideal" is when you should slide in your pizza

As long as you’re familiar with your barbecue, you should have no trouble. You put it on the heat and wait for the hand to reach the "ideal zone" on the dial before sliding your pizza in, but how fast it reaches this state will depend on what kind of BBQ you're using in the first place.

You should be able to fit one pizza up to 25-30cm in the La Hacienda, which makes it slightly smaller in capacity than the popular Ooni Karu 12.

One of the biggest benefits here is storage. Since the La Hacienda isn't a freestanding pizza oven, you can just store it in your kitchen like you would a big pot or pan. Although, you'll need to reserve quite a bit of space for the chunky unit.


Ooni Karu 12

Let's get this one out of the way before we dip into some of the other brands of pizza ovens out there. The Ooni Karu 12 is the most obvious choice, and a best-seller for a very good reason. The multi-fuel pizza oven shares much of the same specs as the newer and more refined Ooni Karu 16 but at a fraction of the cost, with an obviously smaller capacity.

You'll still be able to reach 500˚C very quickly and pump out restaurant-quality pizzas in 60 seconds, but without the Ooni Karu 16's advanced airflow features, you may have to turn the pizza around a bit to make sure the heat hits it evenly.

At just 12kg, it's much more portable than its larger sibling, so you can keep it in your own backyard or you can easily ship it around to a friend's place, a picnic, or a camping trip.

Given Ooni's extensive range of accessories, it's also worth flanking this with a bunch of other pizza-making essentials given you're saving a boatload of money on the appliance itself. That makes the sting of having to buy extra accessories like a digital thermometer a bit lighter.

If you want to go even less expensive, opt for the Ooni Fyra 12, which is pretty much the same thing except it uses only hardwood pellets so you won't be able to use gas or charcoal to puff up your pie.

Given that Ooni is one of the most specialised brands in the pizza oven game, you can also expect great service should you need any ongoing support. It's unlikely you will though; these things are solid and easy to use with highly specific designs aimed at making sure you've got the perfect pizza every time.


Breville Sage The Smart Oven Pizzaiolo

Given Breville pretty much dominates the kitchen appliance game, from the best coffee machines to the best food processors, it's no surprise that they turn in what may be the best home pizza oven for indoor use. This electric pizza oven is geared for success, avoiding the use of charcoal, wood, pellets, or gas for something incredibly easy that will manage to pump out great pizzas.

Yes, wood-fired pizza ovens will always give you unrivalled results, but for something that's entirely electric, the Sage Pizzaiolo is remarkably consistent and more than equipped to pump out pizzas for better than your conventional oven.

There are a few automatic settings on the Pizzaiolo, which will primarily have you choosing between 160˚C and 400˚C, as well as what your intent is — defrost, pain, thick crust, thin & crispy, or wood-fired. The latter is typically where you'll want to be most of the time, heating up the circular oven and pizza stone to cook the pizza evenly.


Zesti ZRW-1100

Handmade in Western Australia, the Zesti ZRW-1100 is the top choice if you want something built locally that can easily compete with the imported pizza oven you've been eyeing on this list. Unlike some of the other options, this bench-top pizza oven incorporates a proprietary colour-coded capping system so you can switch out the look of the oven to match up with your specific home design.

It only takes 25-50 minutes for the Zesti ZRW-1100 to reach 750˚C, which is almost double the maximum temperature of most other specialised pizza ovens should you really want to push your pizza-making skills to the limit.

The oven ships with a stainless steel trolley, custom-made cabinets, and corner cabinets as well, so even though the price may be a bit steep, you're investing in an entire system here. Just make sure you're really serious about your pizza game before you take the dip, otherwise, you might want something a bit less expensive, and infinitely more portable.


Ooni Volt 12

When it comes to combining flavour, portability, versatility, and ease of use, the Ooni Volt 12 is easily one of the best pizza ovens Australia has to offer that uses electric power.

We've been using the Ooni Volt 12 for about two months now, and it's quickly become the second most used appliance in the office (behind the Breville Oracle Touch Coffee Machine).

The ever-so-sleek electric pizza oven can safely be used both indoors and outdoors, heats to a positively piping 500 degrees in about 20 minutes, and offers all the same cooking functionality as a traditional gas or wood-fired oven.

One of our favourite things about the Ooni Volt 12 compared to say a Gozney Roccbox, is the fact that you can easily remove the stone, making it a breeze to clean ahead of your next cook-up. If you're looking for a no-fuss, plug-and-play pizza oven solution, look no further.


Camp Chef Italia Artisan Pizza Oven

Camp Chef takes oven construction very seriously, mirroring the brick ovens of Italy with the single-minded goal of recreating the artisan touch to pizza making. The pinnacle offering from this company is the portable Italia Artisan Pizza Oven, featuring double-walled construction and specifically designed burners to recreate the performance of a traditional wood-fired brick oven.

The Camp Chef Italia Artisan Pizza Oven comes with a cordierite ceramic pizza stone to make it easier for the pizza to really sizzle in that chamber, which can reach a temperature of around 370-400˚C in 15 minutes.

There's a built-in micro-adjust value to give you complete control over the flame, so you can experiment a bit to dial in your own signature pizzas.


Gozney Roccbox Pizza Oven

Running on gas and wood, the Gozney Roccbox Pizza Oven is probably the best dual-pizza oven on the market, and certainly the most popular. Right along with Ooni, Gozney is very well known on the market and one of the more trusted brands when it comes to making highly specialised pizza ovens for the home.

One advantage the Roccbox has over alternatives from Ooni is that you won't need to fork out extra for a separate gas burner. Gozney just included theirs with the oven.

Although it may look it, the Gozney Roccboc isn't the most portable pizza oven you'd find. At 20kg, it's heavier than you'd expect from its size due to the heavy-duty materials used. Although there's is a carrying strap included in the box, in case you do feel like lugging this bad boy around to your local picnic.

Insulation is the key feature for the Roccbox, and Gozney has ensured exceptional construction so you can actually handle the rubberised outer surface without burning your hand off - a feature that is also fairly kid-friendly compared to some of the other options on this list.

The oven tops out at 500˚C and can fit a 12-inch pizza, which is smaller than you'd want at this price point.


Fontana Margherita Pizza Oven

Fontana makes its ovens in Italy and is perhaps the leading manufacturer of both consumer and commercial-grade pizza ovens in Europe. That's no reputation to be taken lightly, so getting your hands on their signature Fontana Margherita Pizza Oven is a wise choice for any amateur pizzaiolo looking to up their home pizza game.

It's a serious investment, but Fontana is known for flawless construction using only premium-quality materials. Not only does this help with insulation, but the design is necessary for a very specific cooking chamber that helps keep heat distribution nice and uniform resulting in pizza that is so consistent you could even turn your backyard into a pop-up restaurant if you wanted.

The Fontana Margherita Pizza Oven can heat up to the ideal 400°C in 30 minutes, which isn't as fast as the Ooni but is still efficient, with Fontana promising that their oven consumes 5 times less wood than a traditional ceramic wood-fired pizza oven.


Alfa Ciao

The Alfa Ciao pizza oven brings authentic Italian wood-fired cooking to your backyard, as a premium oven that combines sleek design with superior functionality. Reaching cooking temperatures in around 15 minutes, its compact size and lightweight construction make it perfect for any outdoor space, while the innovative refractory bricks and stainless steel dome ensure consistent heat distribution for perfect pizzas every time.

With a spacious cooking surface, the Alfa Ciao can bake up to two pizzas simultaneously, making it ideal for family gatherings, entertaining friends, or even just a weeknight cook-up. Easy to assemble and simple to use, this versatile oven isn't just for pizza — it can roast, bake, and grill a variety of meals to perfection.


KILN R Series Oven

With a distinctively modern design, defined by its U-shaped burner, the Kiln R Series Oven is a proper flex for any pizza lovers who care just as much about aesthetics. You can get buy this pizza oven in Australia in either terracotta, graphite or stone as well, making it the ideal choice for curated homes.

The two-burner pizza oven is multifunctional so you can cook more than just pizza in this. Although we know what you'll mostly be using it for. A perfect pizza will pop out in under two minutes thanks to the rotating turntable (which has a 50-hour battery life) and U-shaped burner ensuring even distribution when cooking, searing, or baking anything.


How We Chose This List Of The Best Pizza Ovens In Australia

While we've gone hands-on with easily accessible pizza ovens from the likes of Gozney and Ooni, we haven't gone hands-on with every pizza oven on this list. For example, it's hard to get access to a pizza oven like the Alfa Ciao or the Zesti ZRW-1100. However, we have done our research and considered user reviews as well as specifications such as max temperature and insulation.

From these metrics, it's easy to ascertain which of the best pizza ovens Australia has to offer are worth buying and which aren't. We also considered other details such as design, portability and price.


Do You Need A Pizza Oven For The Home?

If you really want to be pumping out quality pizzas, then yeah, you sure do need one of these fine appliances. Choosing from the best outdoor pizza ovens will help you produce results that go far beyond your standard kitchen oven or gas grill. And you can make more than just pizza in most outdoor pizza ovens.

Your standard kitchen oven is only really capable of reaching up to around 250-260°C, which is just half of what you actually need to achieve the three essentials — perfectly melted toppings, fluffy and perfectly cooked inside, and crispy, charred crust — of a pizza each and every time.

It's not enough to just run around to try to find the best pizza in Sydney or the best pizza in Melbourne every night. If you want to up your game, you simply can't do without one of these. Fortunately for you. there are some very affordable options out there that get the job then, and there are also expensive premium ovens that'll do all the work for you so all you need is to get the base and toppings ready.

If you've got the extra kitchen space, then grabbing an indoor pizza oven is a good idea. Although the portable pizza ovens for outdoor use are generally going to be better. Indoor pizza ovens, like the Breville oven listed below, will usually be electrical/convection. And look, that's fine, but what you really want is the ability to use wood in any form, or gas with a separate gas burner.

If they are large enough, pizza ovens can also cook up a whole host of other foods like roasts, steaks, and stews. So you don't even need to have a hankering for the perfectly blistered dough to get much use out of that wood-fired pizza maker. Plus, that pizza peel (any brand worth its salt would include one with your pizza oven purchase) can easily slide under most of what you'd want to cook up.


Now that you’re acquainted with all of the best pizza ovens on the market, take a look at a couple of our favourite related articles below:

The Weekly Edit

Worth your time.
In your inbox.

The best of Boss Hunting — watches, cars, travel, style and more — curated every Friday. No noise.

No spam. Unsubscribe any time.