This pizza oven goes to 11. At least it says it does. A mere 20 minutes or so after firing up the new All-Clad Gas Pizza Oven—the beloved pot-and-pan brand’s first real foray into outdoor cooking—the oven’s temperature gauge has gone deep into uncharted territory.
The dial’s markings top out at around 900 degrees Fahrenheit, but the thermometer’s needle is somewhere in no man’s land, well above what might register as a thousand if its thermometer weren’t busy shrugging. My infrared temperature gun seems inclined to agree, depending where I point it inside the oven, though the surface of the All-Clad’s thick 16-inch pizza stone is still hanging manageably below 900 degrees.
Consider this an announcement: All-Clad did not come to play.
Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
The propane-powered, 16-inch All-Clad is a powerful new entrant in the still young world of accessible backyard pizza ovens, a landscape whose first decade was mostly a scorched-wood duel between the English and the Scots—Ooni and Gozney, respectively. (See WIRED’s guide to the best pizza ovens.)
All-Clad is making a case that new ideas are still out there. The oven’s big sell, aside from its gaping 16-inch maw, is a rotating pizza stone that’s meant to take a lot of the fuss out of cooking pizza evenly. (The All-Clad isn’t alone. The lower-cost Versa 16 from Halo, which I’m currently testing, also offers a rotating stone.)
In the process, the All-Clad places itself as a genuine contender among top pizza ovens. Once I cooled the oven back down into more reasonable temperatures, I have used this All-Clad to make pies both neo-Neapolitan and New York, baked pies from fresh and frozen alike, seared a handsome ribeye steak, and cooked veggies that ranged from charred to even more charred.
Spin Me Right Round
Video: Matthew Korfhage
I’ll get into the specs later. But first, I want to talk about the oven’s most salient feature: that rotating pizza stone. Is it really as exciting as all that? In short, yes. Yes, it is. It’s likely to be especially attractive to first-time pizza makers, and those who turn out a lot of pies rapidly.
Most pizza ovens heat from a single primary source. And so pizza brands like Ooni have devoted considerable effort to modeling the interior domed shape of their ovens. With propane models that heat from a rim of fire in the back, the idea is to entice flames to lick up and over the dome, creating even heat around the oven, thus heating the stone evenly.
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