Ooni vs Gozney: The Esquire Outdoor Pizza Oven Test

"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links."

Winter bodies are made in the summer, isn’t that what they say? We are at peak dog days, and it is time for us to talk about which outdoor pizza oven you need for your backyard, deck, or balcony. Please note that we will not be discussing whether you need an outdoor pizza oven, because that question has been settled: you do. Anyone can make burgers on a barbecue, but a post-pool-party pizza-making session is a rarer and more precious thing. As the summer fades into autumn, you’ll want something that facilitates this idyllic scenario: backyard homemade flatbreads in sweater weather. Can you even? You can even.

Why pizza ovens at all, and not just your regular household oven or grill? Pizza ovens can reach a temperature that your oven can’t, and that your grill can’t reliably maintain. That circulating heat cooks your pizza up fast, and the even temperature of the pizza stone gets your crust nice and crispy. There are a few excellent, efficient, compact, and frankly gorgeous outdoor pizza ovens on the market right now, which combine the crowd-pleasing, carb-rich activity of pizza-making with the primal appeal of building a fire and heating an oven up to a thousand degrees. And while some models run exclusively on either gas or wood and charcoal, two excellent options allow you to switch back and forth between the two depending on your mood: Ooni’s Karu, and the Gozney Dome. I’ve tried them both, and while both are an absolute pleasure to use, one gets a slight edge. Let’s get into it.

I should say off the top that these ovens look like spacecraft from two very different science-fiction franchises. The Gozney Dome is rounded, as its name suggests, in your choice of unassuming earth-tones: bone or olive. It’s a friendlier looking boy, almost like an Apple product. There’s a compartment underneath the oven that’s just the right size to store some wood chunks, and the ceramic outer coating is secure enough that you don’t sweat keeping wood that close to a roaring fire. By contrast, the Ooni Karu looks a bit more utilitarian: silver, more angular, all business. A Millennium Falcon to the Dome’s Death Star.

For cooking with wood and charcoal, the Karu is the more intuitive: you pile your bricks and chunks (and a couple of starters) onto the included fuel tray, light it up, and push it to the back of the oven. Once the fire is going, air flows through the rear of the unit and escapes out the chimney, carrying the flames over the ceiling. Once your temperature hits a plateau, open a hatch on the back of the unit and add wood or charcoal right onto the fuel tray. The Karu is fast: even taking the time to raise the temperature gradually, I got this guy up to 950 degrees (and the included pizza stone up to the recommended 750) in about 20 minutes. With the Gozney, you light your wood and charcoal in the center, then scooch it off to the right side. The airflow is similar—in from the side and out the chimney—and the flames lick over the top just the same, but adding fuel is a bit clunky: you have to put your wood onto something with a long handle (a pizza turner, sold separately, does the trick) and drop it on the top of the fire from an awkward angle. And without an oven door, also sold separately, it’s a little less efficient: it took me twice as long and more than twice the wood to reach 950.

Pizza-making with gas is easier and more predictable—if it lacks the smokey taste—and it’s here where the Gozney Dome stands out: Switching from wood to gas involves little more than attaching a propane tank to the back with an included hose. For the Karu, it’s a bit of a process: You screw a couple of pieces off the back of the unit and screw a couple more on, which is more time-consuming, and poses a much higher risk of losing a screw in the grass.

I live in Los Angeles, which is dry and fire-prone, and this has been a very hot summer, so I will say getting a pair of outdoor ovens up to nearly a thousand degrees was a little bit terrifying at first. Particularly with the Karu, where occasionally you’ll catch some embers popping out of the rear. But now that I’ve stopped worrying and learned to love extreme heat, there is always a reason to have people over for pizza night. Saute some mushrooms, heat some ground sausage, slice up some onions and peppers and create a toppings station, or make your friends bring their own.

Put your dough on a floured pizza peel, add those toppings, shake it onto the pizza stone, and don’t feel bad if the shape is more Dali-esque than the ideal circle: this is a skill that takes work. When you’re cooking at this high a temperature, you can’t tune out for even a second; there is a high risk of scorching, so keep turning it every ten seconds or so as the crust rises and bubbles. Both the Karu and the Dome make excellent pizzas in a maximum of 90 seconds, so whichever way you go you’ll be beating the delivery guy by about 29 minutes.

With its included steam injector and the optional door, the Dome allows you to bake breads as well as pizzas. It was so much fun to play with, I have officially became the last person in America to start doing sourdough. I’ve also done steaks in the Dome, and a cedar plank salmon. It’s a more versatile oven in that way. It’s also more than twice as expensive, starting at $1,699 to the Karu’s $799. The Dome may in fact be more oven than the beginner needs. The wine bar on our corner has inherited our Gozney Dome and is making some great flatbreads with it, but for us amateurs, for the ease of adding wood and charcoal to a roaring fire without the risk of singeing my arm hairs off, I give the win to the Karu.

Go carb crazy for the dog days of summer. You can run it off when the temperature drops.

You Might Also Like

• Kid Cudi Is All Right

• 16 Best Shoe Organizers For Storing and Displaying Your Kicks