Is the 'world's most in-demand' pizza oven worth it?

I've spent my life around pizza. I'm certain my Italian grandparents and their parents' parents grew up on a solid diet of handmade dough topped with freshly made sauce, a few slices of mozzarella and basil leaves as garnish – it's in my blood.

While we've always cooked our homemade pizzas Roman-style on rectangular trays in the oven, it's always been a curiosity of mine to test our family recipes in an actual wood-fired pizza oven. Would it be the same? Would it enhance our flavours? Would we fight over who gets to use the turning peel? Wouldn't you like to know?

For the purpose of this review, Gozney supplied their Dome pizza oven – you can buy it for $2999. Out of their range of five pizza ovens, the Dome is their professional-grade outdoor oven, AKA "the world's most in-demand oven" according to Gozney. Speak to everyone I know who knows I have one of these in the backyard, and yeah, it's very much "in demand" – the tagline tracks.

Buy it here!

The specs

Colour: Bone, but it also comes in Off Black

Fuel type: Wood-fire and gas-fuel, depending on how you like to cook, you have the choice

Weight: 58kg

Dimensions (external): 660mm H x 630mm D x 732mm W

Dimensions (oven mouth): 120mm H and 410mm W

Max temperature: 500 degrees Celsius

Warranty: 5 years

The set-up

This part was surprisingly simple. Once it's out of the box, it's pretty straightforward.

If you haven't got a sturdy table or bench for this oven to live I highly recommend buying the Dome Stand ($549). For safety reasons, it will give you peace of mind when firing up the oven. Plus, the stand has lockable wheels so you can move the oven around (when it's not in use, of course) if you must.

Firing it up

Gas bottles scare me. It's an irrational fear and one that made me nervous when getting started, but thank God for the very easy-to-understand manual. Once the oven connects to the gas bottle, it's smooth sailing to your first pizza.

Before you crack on with your first pizza, the oven needs to heat up. It takes 30 minutes to get to the ideal temperature – 420 degrees Celsius was the sweet spot for a perfectly crisp crust and adequately cooked base. Anything less and you're waiting longer for pizza, and your base gets kinda soggy. Be patient and you'll get the perfect slice.

Making pizza

Waiting for the pizza oven to heat up is the right amount of time to get your pizza toppings ready. It's definitely not the time to start making your pizza dough, don't be so silly, that needs to be done well in advance – either the morning of or the day before. Need a recipe? Google it, or find plenty of dough options in Gozney's Pizza Volume 01 Cookbook ($59)!

The trick to perfect wood-fired pizza: less (on your pizza) is more. The more you load up your pizza base the harder it will be to move around the oven with the turning peel and c'mon, you don't need a thousand toppings (and you certainly don't need pineapple, so leave that where it belongs). You're making a wood-fired pizza, after all.

Once your pizza is in the oven, the turning peel will help you move the pizza in slow, gentle circles so you can evenly cook the pizza. The rolling flame comes over from the left inside the oven, which means you have to be watching it the whole time. But when the pizza takes less than a couple of minutes to cook, it's not a tough ask.

The clean up

Unless you're a messy cook, cleaning the Dome requires little cleaning up. Once the oven has completely cooled – this can take a few hours – simply brush the stone of any charred bits of pizza and you're good to go again.

As a self-confessed clean freak, and because the oven lives outside, I bought the Dome Rope Sealed Door ($159) and attached it to the oven. This is for steaming and roasting, so I know it will come in handy when we get to that, but it's also a great way to keep it extra clean inside the oven when it's not being used.

Storage

Handy to have is the pizza oven cover, it's waterproof and fits nicely over the oven. With the movable stand, you can wheel the oven away if you need, or leave it in its place. It's fairly compact for a pizza oven that can pump out pizza after pizza, after pizza.

Accessories worth buying for the Gozney Dome

In the first week of having this pizza oven, I used it four times, which (I think) makes me qualified to advise on the essential accessories. Pizza making is an art, and when you've got an oven as good as this, your pizza will only be as good as your accessories.

Balance placement peel ($139): Don't skip this. How else will you get your pizza into and out of the oven?

Balance turning peel ($149): Definitely needed to turn your pizza as it cooks for an evenly cooked pizza. If you don't mind working in tight spaces you could get away with only using the placement peel, but that will get old quickly. Buy this and save yourself the annoyance.

Dome stand ($549): We've already touched on this, but unless you have an area made to hold something as hot and heavy as a flaming pizza oven, get this stand. It comes with two shelves underneath, two fold-down side tables and hooks to hang your peels.

Pizza Volume 01 Cookbook ($59): Cook one basic pizza and you'll be ready to up your skills. This book delivers pizza base recipes for all styles of pizzas, so you'll never get bored. While it's not essential, it's certainly a really nice-to-have.

Dome and stand cover ($159): The oven is made to live outside, so keep it in good nick with a cover for the oven and the stand.

Is the Gozney Dome pizza oven worth it?

If you love pizza, and you have the outdoor space to keep a pizza oven, the Dome is 1000 per cent worth every cent. It's great for entertaining and perfect for families who like to get hands-on on pizza night. When you realise how easy it is to make restaurant-quality pizzas at home, you'll never want to eat out again. You'll also find more people 'pop over' when they hear you're firing up the Dome. Pizza = friends.

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