Gozney Dome (dual-fuel) review: The Rolls-Royce of pizza ovens

The Gozney Dome is a professional-grade, outdoor pizza oven. It’s able to cook pizzas up to 16in wide and a huge range of other dishes with the use of a cast iron skillet and additional accessories. Like most at-home pizza ovens, it can rapidly reach a scorching 500ºC and sling out freshly-baked, restaurant-style pizzas in as little as 60 seconds – sometimes less. Oh, and it just so happens to look fabulous, too.

At first glance, it appears to be a serious bit of kit, reserved for only the most hardcore pizza and outdoor cooking enthusiasts. In reality, it’s supremely approachable, even for wannabe pizza fanatics. With a less than approachable £1,499 price, though, the Dome is a financial commitment not everyone will be willing to make, even with its user-friendly setup.

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Gozney Dome (dual-fuel) review: What do you get for the money?

Much like its cheaper sibling the Roccbox, Gozney has created the Dome oven with ease of use in mind. Its grand, domed structure comes mostly pre-assembled, with the exception of the chimney and unscrewing a couple of sections to add batteries.

The design is as attractive as it is practical. It comes with an “accessories port” at the front, which can be used to store wood or anything else you like. There’s also a built-in digital thermometer – a backlit display displays the oven temperature in celsius or fahrenheit – and two digital food temperature probes are also included in the box.

If you opt for the dual-fuel version, you’ll also find a gas dial at the front to increase or decrease the size of the flame, with a hose to the rear for attaching your LPG tank. Both the single- and dual-fuel models have a removable tray which collects ash from inside the oven.

Its cream outer body has a ceramic-bonded coating to protect it from both water and UV damage, and a 30mm thick double-layer stone floor on the interior provides an added layer of insulation to help with heat retention.

Unlike a lot of smaller outdoor pizza ovens, the Dome’s 58kg body is not portable – it’s at least a two person job to move it. Despite its weight, though, it’s not as large as you might think. Measuring 73.2 x 63.0 x 66.0cm (WDH) externally, it will comfortably sit on top of most classic pizza oven/outdoor kitchen tables and stands. You can also buy a dedicated Gozney Dome stand for £289.

With the exception of the digital food probes, there are no additional accessories in the box. This does seem a little odd, considering its hefty price tag. In fact, the Dome is one of the most expensive domestic pizza ovens you can buy. Gozney’s main competitor Ooni also sells a 16in dual-fuel oven, the Karu 16, for a slightly less eye-watering £700 – or £780 if you include the gas burner, which you have to buy separately. Of course, there are some major differences between the two models, including the Dome’s extravagant design, two removable temperature probes, roomier cooking area and the array of optional cooking accessories which turn the Dome into a fully functional outdoor oven. The Dome’s internal cooking area is also slightly larger at 47 x 55cm (WD), versus the Karu 16’s 42.42 x 42.42cm (WD). Its baking stone is also double the thickness at 30mm compared to 15mm on the Karu.

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Gozney Dome (dual-fuel) review: What’s good about it?

Provided you’ve planned ahead and bought key accessories such as a pizza peel and pizza turner, it’s easy to get started with the Dome. The instructions are clear and switching between gas and wood is as simple as moving a stone puck from one side of the oven to the other. LPG gas is attached to the outside of the oven as standard, but wood requires you to start the fire directly in the oven. This is quite different compared to most domestic pizza ovens, where the fuel is typically added to the back, and allows you to get your food closer to that crisp, smokey heat.

Gas-fired heat up times were around 30-40 mins on a sunny 20ºC day, and wood-fired heat up times were around 40+ minutes in similar weather. These aren’t the fastest heat up times we’ve seen from a domestic pizza oven but are respectable given the Dome’s size and thickness of stone. The heat retention of the oven between pizzas, especially with gas, was excellent and it kept its temperature better than the Ooni Karu 16.

When it came to pizza, the results were excellent using both gas and wood, though you do get a smokier, more traditional flavour with wood. I didn’t feel that the results from the Dome were drastically different from the Ooni Karu at maximum temperature, though the pizzas were easier to turn due to the Dome’s wider mouth, meaning there were fewer unintentional crispy bits.

Its extra-wide opening means it’s incredibly easy to fit in multiple dishes at once when cooking with gas. You can fit two smaller pizzas in side-by-side, or if you’re cooking things such as steak, vegetables or flat breads, there’s enough room to fit two small skillets side by side. Wood cooking is a little less spacious, as some of the stone’s surface is taken up with wood. As a side note, the Dome’s wide opening also makes it much easier to clean out than other pizza ovens.

The build quality is exemplary. Compared to other at-home pizza ovens – even the most premium models – this thing comes out top in every design area. Its stainless steel and ceramic body looks and feels incredible. Everything down to the steel gas dial and thermometer have been carefully thought out to provide a high-end cooking experience. When it comes to design, there’s nothing else quite like it.

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Gozney Dome (dual-fuel) review: What could be better?

While its beauty is matched with flawless results, the Dome is still a huge investment. The lack of additional accessories included in the box is disappointing, too. A pizza turner and peel are essential tools when using the Dome, or any pizza oven in fact. Moreover, it’s incredibly tricky to add wood to the Dome while hot without the use of a wood loader, as you have to almost reach inside the oven to stack it – not advisable when the internal temperature of the oven is approaching 500 degrees centigrade. If you purchase the Dome’s pizza peel, turner and wood loader direct from Gozney, this will set you back an additional £174.

For the price, the end results don’t differ all that drastically from the Ooni’s flagship oven, the Karu 16. The Dome’s build quality is undeniably better and you do get a lot more wiggle room, making it easier to manoeuvre pizza. However, when compared side by side, they both produce excellent pizzas, so the Dome’s additional cost seems extravagant.

The Dome is also quite greedy with fuel. It required quite a bit of wood to get it up to 500ºC, which meant that a fair bit of the cooking space ended up being taken over by the wood, and though the heat retention was good, it still required constant monitoring. While it’s hard to measure exactly how much gas it was chomping through, if you’re cooking for a crowd of five or more, don’t expect to get more than four sessions out of it with a 10kg bottle of LPG.

It’s also worth mentioning that I tested this with the official Gozney Dome stand. As someone under 5ft, this was simply too tall to use comfortably, as the Dome and stand places the oven door at shoulder height. This means that if you’re a little vertically challenged like myself, you’ll need to stick to a more traditional heatproof outdoor stand to use it safely, unless you fancy using a step stool to make your pizzas.

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Gozney Dome (dual-fuel) review: Should you buy it?

There really isn’t anything wrong with the Dome’s performance. It’s a fast and reliable oven that can cook everything from pizza to steak. In testing, it produced perfectly crisp and crunchy pizza with a wonderfully blistered crust. It’s also easy to use, set up and clean. Oh, and it’s gorgeous, too, which certainly adds to its appeal.

However, given the lofty price, we’d expect more: it requires you to purchase a few too many extras and the results aren’t a marked improvement over the Ooni Karu (£699). If you’re after something that can cook a menu that stretches well beyond pizza, and money is no object, then you’ll be delighted to have the Dome in your garden. For the average at home pizza lover, though, the Karu 16 is far better value.

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