I've made 150,000 pizzas – the Gozney Arc helped me beat all of them

After a quick calculation, I've worked out that I've cooked more than 150,000 pizzas. I was a pizzaiolo as a summer job for six years and it's a personal passion of mine. All of these pizzas were cooked in Gozney ovens, so to say that I'm familiar with the brand would be an understatement. 

You can imagine my response when I heard that Gozney had launched the Arc. The brand describes it as 'the world's most advanced compact pizza oven.' If that's true, it's a game-changer for those who have smaller yards or who don't want a pizza oven that will dominate their space. I couldn't wait to put it through its paces.

I was confident that Gozney would deliver on its promises with this sleek and petite oven, but I thought I'd bring in the big guns for testing. I called on Tom, the founder of the pizza business that I used to work for. The number of pizzas that he's cooked in Gozney ovens stands well over a million, so together, we've seen the all-good, the wood-fired, and the gas outdoor ovens. Here's what we thought of the Arc.

Specifications

Who would it suit?

The Arc is designed for single pizzas and smaller spaces. We set this up on a small bit of decking, it didn’t dominate and looked smart too. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that I was smitten at first sight. The easy set-up process only made me more convinced that this is the pizza ovens that all beginners need to invest in.

The gas and temperature gauge takes all the skill and difficulties out of cooking, making it easy for beginners to get perfect pizzas every time. Wood-fired ovens take longer to warm up and they’re harder to control.  The only problem with gas is that it doesn’t give the smoky taste of wood. you’ll get all the lovely brown, speckled cheese. 

The 14-inch dome is perfect if you’re a group of four and willing to share one pizza as it comes out (these only take about 60 seconds in the oven anyway). If you’ll be hosting parties and you need speed and capacity, this is where the Arc might limit you. There’s no space inside to squeeze another pizza or throw a half pepper. Every dish has to wait in line.

Unboxing

When the delivery driver is bringing a pizza oven to your door, you might expect that you’ll need a whole prep team to help them move this serious piece of equipment around. The point of the Arc is that it’s compact. I could hardly believe that the box at my feet even had a pizza oven in it. It weighs just short of 50 lbs, so this is relatively easy to lift, especially since the packaging around it is pretty pared-back. 

The Arc comes with a thermometer, 1.2m gas hose and regulator, burner guard, flue outlet, stone adjustment tool, torx screwdriver, matchstick holder, and a trusty manual. This means you'll need to prep a few things for yourself if you want to get it fired up immediately. First, you'll need a gas tank. Gozney recommends an LPG patio gas bottle; any of the gas tanks from Home Depot will cover you. 

You might also want to get some accessories because these will make your life a lot easier. If you don't already have a placement peel ($70 from Gozney), this is useful for getting a topped pizza from your surface into the oven. Without one of these, it's a messy task. Another essential is the turning peel. This is smaller than the placement peel ($90 from Gozney), giving you more agility once your pizza is in the oven. It also keeps your hands and arms out of the way of the flame's heat. You'll need asbestos hands and arms if you don't have one of these. 

I also got the Arc stand ($250 at Gozney), as I needed a good place to put the pizza oven. If you've got the budget, this will make your life very easy. As would their pizza cutter pizza sever, and Arc cover. However, these extras add up and you can end up spending hundreds of dollars if you're not careful.

What is it like to use?

Once the Arc was on its stand, all I had to do was remove a few blue tags from around the stone and connect a gas tube. You’ll probably want two people to guide your oven into place; one can be the muscle and one can be the brain. The instructions give you a lot of warnings and cautions, which you'll need to sift through to find the practical instructions. However, it’s an extremely simple process that doesn’t need more than 15 minutes.

Once everything is in place, Gozney recommends running the gas fire for half an hour before you start cooking. There’s a neat temperature gauge that updates you on your oven temperature and I wanted this to hit 650°F before cooking pizza. True to their word, the 30-minute timer went off and the oven was 650°F, so I could get testing.

Test 1: pizza

Pizzas come in all shapes and sizes, from Neopolitan to American to deep-dish and more. Gozney’s website has a recipe for them all. With four people to feed, I tested a whole host of flavors, but I started with a simple cheese pizza because it's simple, quick, and a good test of the fundamental features of your pizza oven. 

I used 8 oz of dough rolled into a 12-inch base. After making sure the placement peel was dusted with flour, I slid the base onto it (always add your toppings once the pie is on the peel), added my tomato sauce, and sprinkled over a mix of mozzarella and cheddar. Purists will say that I should have skipped the cheddar, but this is what browns and bubbles best in the oven. Trust me. 

I slid the pie off the paddle and into the oven. Even though the mouth of the dome looks quite small, there’s plenty of room for shaking the pie off and moving it around. 

I let the pie sit on the hot stone for around 30 seconds. The crusts puffed up and bubbled, and by the time these had lifted off the stone by about 1mm, I slid the peel underneath and spun the pizza by 45 degrees. I repeated this until all edges of the crusts were nicely browned. In total, this took sixty-three seconds, which is super speedy. 

Everything cooked through perfectly. Tom and I agreed that these were perfect pizzas. When we checked the base, we found some beautiful leopard-print spotting, the perfect indication that the pizza cooked right through to the center.

When we bit into them, the base had a nice crisp and crunch, whilst the inside crust was still fluffy. The stringy cheese had melted right through. Our peppers and mushrooms still had some crunch, but they were hot and cooked through. In a nutshell, it was perfection. 

Test 2: calezone

I might upset a few people because I don’t think calzones are that great when they’re made in a pizza oven, especially small ovens. It’s hard to cook them right through without charring the outside and undercooking the inside. I’ve faced the same problems in commercial ovens, but I was ready for the Arc to change the game.

I used the same pizza dough to make a vegetable and cheese calzone, which I put on the floured peel and slid into the oven. We turned the flames down a little because the calzone was quite tall, so we were concerned that it would char. By the time we were cooking, the oven was 650°F.

The base of the oven did a great job of crisping the dough, so we could slide the peel back under without making a hole in any raw dough. We twisted it around, keeping it in the oven for as long as possible. In reality, we had to take it out at three minutes 46 seconds because the top was tipping from appetizingly browned into irrecoverably burned. 

In the end, the calzone was cooked right through. The dough was soft inside, all the cheese had melted and my vegetables were soft. The greatest shame was that this had to come at the cost of the top of the calzone, which we ate, but probably shouldn’t have: it was burnt. The issue is that this cooks so quickly on the outside and the flames come so low in the Arc's small dome, that you sort of have to burn it to be able to eat any of it. 

Test 3: Roasted vegetables

The natural progression from pies and all things Italian is to move onto barbecue-style food. Gozney has a whole recipe collection for outdoor cooking online, from nachos to burgers and roasted artichokes to tarte tatin. 

I wanted to start with a basic test that any grill or outdoor cooker should be able to nail. I halved some peppers, quartered some onions, and drizzled them in olive oil and seasoning. I put them in a deep dish and slid it in on the peel.

By now, I had cooled the Arc to 450°F, as advised by the Gozney site. I gave them three minutes and checked for charring: they'd bubbled but weren't ready. I gave them another two and they had transformed from steamy into crispy. When we tucked into them, the skins were soft, falling off the pepper flesh, with some delicious crispy bits on top. The onions were similar, still quite firm, but cooked and softened right through. All the flavors were concentrated and really intensely sweet. It was incredible. Sometimes, it’s the simple things that are the best.

Test 4: Chicken breast

Even as someone au fait with pizza ovens, I was skeptical about cooking chicken with such a gung-ho method. It was easy to play with timings on the peppers because they're vegetables. Chicken, however, is a whole new ball game, and you risk food poisoning if you get it wrong. However, Gosney says you can cook chicken thighs and breasts in the Arc, so who am I to argue?

I put the chicken breasts into the same pan as my peppers and drizzled them in an oil mix, with garlic, salt, and pepper. I put these in the oven at 450°F for six minutes, rotating the tray halfway to ensure an even cook. They came out nicely browned. As someone who is very cautious around chicken, I stuck a temperature probe in the middle and, at 165°F. they were cooked right through.

Once I had made sure it was safe, we tucked into the chicken. The skins were crispy and brown and yet they were still moist and soft, falling apart on the inside. We all agreed that they were delicious.

Test 5: brownie

This is the test that I’ve been telling everyone about. Who knew that you could make peanut butter brownies in a pizza oven?

I made brownies using Gozney’s recipe, baked them in a brownie pan (like this from Walmart), and covered the pan with foil. I had to let the oven cool to 145°F. However, the oven temperature kept dropping, even when I turned the flames back on. This meant that I had to wait for the oven to warm back up again. It only took a few minutes, but finding the temperature turning point requires quite some attention. 

In just six minutes I made some incredible (if I do say so myself) brownies. They had a lovely, peanut butter, glossy crust on top, and they were still gooey (but cooked) in the middle. Even though we were stuffed full of pizza and flame-cooked food, the whole tray of brownies found a spot in our stomachs. 

Cleaning, storage, and maintenance

I was sad to watch the pizza stone scratch and blacken the more we cooked on it. It was pristine to start with and, sadly, there’s very little you can do to keep it that way. 

If you wait for the oven to cool, you can sweep flour and any stray crusts out. You could even give the stone a scrub using a tough bristled brush, such as the Cuisinart CCB-399 Pizza Stone Cleaning Brush. Try to avoid using detergents, since they come into contact with flames when you turn the oven on. If you’re really determined to clean your oven, when cooled, the stone is removable. Once out of the oven, you’ll have free rein to give it a deep clean.

Fortunately, the outside didn’t mark at all. We had the Gozney Arc oven cover, which protects your oven from all the outdoor elements. However, it’s not heat resistant, so you’ll need to wait for your oven to completely cool before putting this on. 

How does it rate online?

The Arc has received praise from plenty of happy pizza customers. I'd say that it's a bit of an online sensation. Reviewers agree that this is the perfect in-between size. It's not compact like the Roccbox and it's not as huge as the Dome S1. 

Everyone agrees that this looks beautiful, is simple to use, and doesn't demand a huge amount of space. 

I'm well aware that showering the Gozney in, well deserved, praise isn't very helpful if you're looking for some balance. However, I'm genuinely being fair; my criticisms are few and far between. I found some who wished that the peels and covers were included in the price since the accessories can get expensive, but that's all there is. 

How does it compare?

The Gozney Arc is a brilliant little pizza oven, but I'm aware of its limitations. For example, if you want to be able to enjoy some smoky flavors, rather than only cooking on gas, you'll want to check out some other models. The Ooni Karu 16 is bigger than the Arc, but it's brilliant for cooking with a range of fuel types. It's also endorsed by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, who are the world-renowned authorities on pizza.

If you like the Arc, but thing you could do with some more capacity, the Dome S1 is a another great Gozney oven. You could squeeze another pizza inside the spacious dome whilst still enjoying all the simplicities of the Arc's gas flames. The aesthetics are close to identical too, so it'll look really sleek in your yard. 

Should you buy it?

The Gozney Arc is the perfect pizza oven if you're new to al fresco cooking. The simple gas controls take all the guesswork out of cooking, whilst still delivering sensitive temperatures and incredible results. It's compact, so you'll be making pizzas one at a time, but that's perfect if you don't want a dome that will dominate your space.

How we test

When it comes to testing pizza ovens, the pleasure is all ours. We love putting them through their paces, throwing dough, meats, bakes, and treats at them. If a pizza oven makes a claim, we test it out.

We make notes on every part of the pizza oven process, which starts with unboxing. The best pizza ovens are easy to set up, even if they’re huge. We’ve tested ones that took hours to get up and, whilst you might be willing to sink half a day to get the perfect pizza oven, it’s nice to have a heads-up.

We’ll also let you know about maintenance because it’s useful to know if your pizza oven is going to be easy to keep clean or if it’s going to need some serious TLC. Most of these are pretty robust, but again, it never hurts to have all the information.