Love at first bite - how the Ooni became my (and the celebrity) pizza oven of choice

It’s not often that I’ll lop my name in amongst Beyonce, the Obamas, Drew Barrymore, and Florence Pugh, but I’ve found something we all have in common. All of us own Ooni pizza ovens. And the one I really love is the Ooni Karu.

Ooni are celebrities in and of themselves. Known for making some of the best pizza ovens on the market, they offer quality is balanced with reasonable price and expert support. This summer I put their very best models to the test and this one came out as one of the best wood fired pizza ovens you can buy.

As someone with decades of experience cooking with these, when I say an oven makes a margarita worth throwing party for, I mean it. With this hard working oven, you really do get what you pay for. Here's everything you need to know

Ooni Karu 12 2nd Generation Pizza Oven Review

You'll often see a few numbers after the name of the Ooni Karu. The one that I've tested is the Ooni Karu 12 2nd generation. This means that the mouth and stone is designed for a 12-inch pizza, which is the perfect size in my book. It's the average size that you'd get from 8 oz of pizza dough, which is enough to feed one person with a good appetite. Any bigger and you might start to find that it won't fit on your pizza peel. Any smaller and you'll have room in your stomach for more food.

The 2nd generation part of the name is pretty self-explanatory. This is the second iteration of the Ooni Karu. The biggest change is that there's a clear, borosilicate glass door, which improves the speed and efficiency of the oven, letting you keep an eye on your culinary creations without a blast of heat in your face.

Ooni Karu Specifiations

Who would the Ooni Karu suit?

You’ll be looking at the Ooni if you have about £350 to spend on a pizza oven. That's at the affordable end of the spectrurm (I wouldn't go for anything under £250), but you wouldn't know it. This feels like a really good pizza oven. I actually thought it was £500 initially and still was arguing that it's good value.

The first thing at that this excels is in fuel options. You can cook on gas (although you’ll need to buy a special attachment) or wood, so you can switch between styles depending on the kind of food you want to cook.

For creative chefs and more advanced oven owners, willing to give more time and attention, this is great. Beginners will still be able to enjoy the gas, but I have some more simple alternatives id recommend further down.

Unboxing the Ooni Karu

Be under no illusion that a pizza oven can shimmy its way through your letter box. These are big deliveries, but Ooni handles them well. The large, substantial box will come with handles on each side, so you can manoeuvre this into place, just have your arm muscles ready.

Ooni sends you the oven and pizza stone, but you will need to buy a pizza peel separately as well as a gas attachment if you plan on using that. My top tip for my wood fired enthusiasts is to get these flamers and kiln dried kindling. The space to fit the logs in is small and you’ll get a quicker, cleaner flame with these prepped.

You'll want to think about the where you want to put your pizza oven, ideally before setting up, but this is portable enough to change your mind and shuffle the Ooni around. If you need a hand, we have a page on all the places that you shouldn't put your pizza oven.

Ooni sends a very clear, pictorial instruction guide on how to set up your oven. If you’re impatient, you can also scan a QR code to watch a video. All the tools you need to get this fired up come with the oven, so it’s really a matter of locking the flue into place and setting the legs up. I did it on my own and had the flames burning at the back in under five minutes. Given that I do this for a living, I’d allow yourself ten minutes. All in all, it’s really simple.

What is the Ooni Karu like to use?

There are lots of handy features on the Karu. The door with a viewing window for one is great. Flames can get hot on your face, especially in the wind, so being able to close it and still keep an eye on the pizza makes a big difference.

I tested this out with the wood burner in place and had the base of the oven up to 340 degrees in 25 minutes, which is bang on average for a pizza oven. The heat was nice and even across the base (I checked with a heat gun) and the first pizza that I cooked (which would normally burn on the base because it’s built up so much heat), was perfect. I like how quietly brilliant this is.

In my life, I have cooked over a quarter of a million pizzas and the flavours produced by this oven were exceptional. I really don’t say that lightly, because I don’t like to devalue praise when it’s given, but I can think of any reason not to rave about this.

I cooked ten pizzas in here: vegan, veggie, meaty, margarita, marinara, garlic bread. You name it, I showed it the flames. On a taste test with five other people, the Ooni Karu one scored top points. My pizzas were ready in 90 seconds, which is the average time you’d expect from an oven like this. Each pizza came out with a crisp bases and fluffy crust. What stands out though, is the smoky, authentic flavour.

We blind-tested slices of pizza made in here and they were consistently in a league of their own. The full flavours were exceptional: my tomato sauce was rich and smoky, the vegetables were tender and crispy, and the cheese melted into beautiful stringy strands that had an advert-style golden crunch on top. It didn’t take much effort to extract perfection from the Karu. It was love at first bite.

Now, I have to be honest here. Nachos are great for a quick blast in the oven when you're hosting and you want to whet the appetite of your guests. You want to melt the cheese, warm the chips, and then whip it out.

My nachos, if you look carefully at the back of the picture, caught fire as soon as the skillet went into the oven. I think the heat and the flames are a little too much. Gas will tell you a different story, but a wood fire is just a touch too much for something like this. It’s brilliant for cooking the pizzas all over, but a bit too fierce for something as fragile as a flammable nacho chip. I did put the fire out and the nachos were still very much devoured. I just wonder whether they tasted a little smokier than expected because they came that little bit closer to the flames….

Given the immense success of the pizzas, you’ll be on the money for predicting how my vegetable skillet came out.

I chopped up all of my favourite vegetables, tossed them in olive oil, salt, and pepper, and popped them in the Karu. I found the flames were pretty fierce on the pizza test, so kept this rotating every 15 seconds for three minutes. By that point, I could see lovely speckles and bubbles on the vegetables.

Normally, the vegetables need about 5-10 minutes and I was surprised that the Karu was this extreme in its efficiency. The vegetables were delicious, smoky and sweet, but I’d be tempted to let the fire die down for about ten or fifteen minutes and then pop the skillet in for five minutes of a lower and slower cook. You’ll get unbeatable results (I know because I did it the next night).

When I gave them five minutes with a low and slow cook, the skins were falling off my pepper slices, the courgette burst with juice in my mouth, and the mushrooms had an incredible meatiness to them. Again, in our blind taste tests, these topped the scoreboard.

Having learnt my lesson, I let the fire lie low until it almost looked like I had ash in my oven. Then I popped my skillet of cookies in place and baked them for five minutes. They needed to be rotated every minute and then they came out like this. They were gooey in the middle, so I left them to set for a couple of hours (except for one cookie which went straight onto a plate, who can blame me?) and they solidified. The cookies were brilliant: crispy on the outside, chewy in the right places, and soft in the others. I was well and truly pleased.

Cleaning the Ooni Karu

I have a few pieces of advice when it comes to how to clean, store, and maintain a pizza oven. The first is that, if you’re keeping it outside, you’ll need a cover. This gives it some protection against the harshness of the elements. Ooni makes ones specifically for the Karu, but you can also buy generic covers on Amazon.

My other piece of advice is to buy a brush with brass bristles. You shouldn’t really wet pizza stones, because they’re porous and you risk ruining them. However, you’ll definitely get soot, food, and all sorts of bits and pieces that will fall onto the base. A solid wire brush will do all the grunt work for making sure the base of your oven is easy to cook on and clean too. If you do drop any bits and pieces, try to sort it before they solidify, unless it’s cheese or sauce. In which case, let it bake, dry, and then you can sweep them away.

The place that you can (and should) use a damp cloth is on the oven door. This will get sooty and tomato-ey really quickly, so it’s always worth giving it a clean with some warm soapy water. There’s no point having the window if you can’t see through it.

My final piece of advice is to keep on top of the wood burner. You’ll quickly get ash building up in here. When it’s cool enough, lift it up and empty it out. You’ll get a much more efficient flame in your oven the next time you’re cooking. The good news is, you can use the ash in lots of useful ways in your garden.

How does the Ooni Karu compare?

If you want a pizza oven that’s multi-fuel and made to last, there’s no argument against this being worth every pound. However, I understand that those more sceptical about pizza ovens might want to go for something a little more affordable, which is where the Woody Oven comes in.

A full oven kit (including the cover and gas attachment) will set you back £250, which is half of what the Ooni will cost you if you bought all the extras that I recomend. I didn’t find the Woody Oven quite as slick to assemble, for as consistent in my tests: the first pizza I made burnt on the base, the attachments were a little fiddly, and some parts definitely feel cheaper than the Ooni. However, a beginner could certainly get a lot of use from this and see some brilliant benefits too.

The flip side of this is if your budget is £500, but you’re a beginner, and not sure about high maintenance wood fired ovens. If that’s the case, the Morso Forno Spin is a brilliant oven. It’s stylish, very easy to use, and it even has a rotating base that cooks your food evenly without you needing to hop in and turn your pizza or skillet every thirty seconds. As a novice, or a busy host, I think that’s a brilliant extra. The only downside is that the turning element needs to be connected to your electrics, so keep your eyes peeled for an outdoor plug or an extension cable.

Should you buy the Ooni Karu?

I’m such a fan of the Karu, I feel I need to clarify that this isn’t a sponsored advert. I’m actually normally very critical of pizza ovens, but I feel this is one of the best multi-fuel options you can buy. In terms of bang for your buck balanced with quality, this is hard to argue against. Perhaps that’s why it’s the choice of many a famous face. Perhaps the next one could be yours.

How we test pizza ovens

At woman&home we take our pizza tests seriously. I grew up in a family who runs a pizza business, so I know what makes a good pizza oven. From the type of fuel you use, to the kind of pizza stone on the base, all these little details add up to make or break a pizza oven. The reviews are the place where I can share my expertise with you.

Each pizza oven review that you'll see follows a standard set of tests. I make plenty of pizzas and calzones as well as skillets of roasted vegetables, nachos, cookies, and more. I leave no pizza stone unturned, so that when you see a review, you see the full spectrum of what it's capable of, as well as the quirks and cooking tips that I have for first time users.

I also make sure to talk about the setting-up process, cleaning, and how the pizza oven compares to other models, so that you have a comprehensive idea of whether this is the pizza oven for you.

To find out more, you can visit our dedicated page for how we test pizza ovens.