Is Ooni worth it? Let the Koda do the cooking and you'll have an answer

In all debates about the best pizza ovens you can buy, the Ooni Koda makes its appearance. Slim, stylish, and quietly brilliant, it balances price and performance as smoothly as a chef spinning pizza dough.

I’ve long been a fan of Gozney’s pizza ovens and have put them down as the best pizza ovens on the market, but the Ooni is one that really challenged my conviction.

I hosted a pizza party, relying on the Koda to stand up to claims that it’s the best gas pizza oven on the market and it rose to the challenge. This might be one of my favourite models yet.

Ooni Koda 14 2nd Generation Pizza Oven review

The Ooni Koda is an all-gas oven, which means that you'll need to buy a canister before you can get cooking. You'll see a couple of numbers after its name (these often confuse buyers), but they're really simple. I tested the Ooni Koda 14, which means that the base has space for a 14-inch pizza. In my book, that's more than enough. You'd need about a 9 oz dough ball to make one of those and any adult would feel pretty full after eating a full one of these. The average pizza uses a 7-8oz dough ball for a pizza base. Actually, you don't really want to go any bigger than this, because it'll become hard to fit on paddles and peels when you're cooking.

The second number is the "2nd generation" tag, which just tells you that this has been updated with some special features on top of what's on offer from the initial version. In summary, they've created a stainless steel ledge that you can rest your pizza on to check whether it's cooked and the stone flares out with an extra two inches at the mouth to make it easier to cook with. There's also special "Advanced G2 Gas Technology" with a tapered flame design that cooks your pizza with more precision and thoroughness.

Ooni Koda Specifiations

Who would the Ooni Koda suit?

As a gas powered pizza oven, the Ooni Koda is a natural choice for lots of pizzaiolos. Gas can be used in areas where you might be restricted with what you can burn (the case in lots of cities) and it’s also really nice and consistent if you’re new to cooking pizzas. Wood burning pizza ovens might give you more flavour, but they’re also very demanding.

This is brilliant if you’re short on space too. The compact design is perfect for small courtyards and balconies, but equally wouldn’t look dwarfed in a large garden. The mouth of the oven is still wide and easy to manoeuvre pizzas in and the steel shelf makes it easy to check on your pizzas part-way through cooking. I’d definitely recommend this for first-time pizza chefs, but also for those just looking for something that will make reliably good pizza.

Unboxing the Ooni Koda

Pizza ovens are hefty, weighty things and they need to be if you want them to last a long time and make you good pizzas. Ooni knows this and they give you a lot notice with delivery. I was lucky enough to have delivery drivers who even put the box where I needed it.

The handles on either side of the box make is easier to lift than most other pizza oven deliveries that I’ve had and everything inside is really neat.

For the most part, Ooni’s packaging is all cardboard, which means that you can recycle the packaging. That gets a big tick from me. There are some small plastic bags, but these are also recyclable if you have a soft plastic point nearby.

The simple instruction manual will talk you through how to set this up and it will also point out that you need a battery to get the gas working. I thought we’d stumbled to a stop, but Ooni sends you one in the box, so you’ll just need to make sure you find and extract it before you get all the cardboard flattened.

The rest of the instructions will demonstrate that the legs unfold and lock into place, the pizza stone sits solidly inside the mouth of the oven and that’s about it. You could easily do this in five minutes, following either the pictorial or QR code video instructions. It’s nice to have some options.

What is the Ooni Koda like to use?

I was impressed with how quickly this heated up. Most ovens recommend burning a flame for at least 30 minutes, not in the least to get rid of any dust and dirt that's settled in transit, but also to warm up the oven and stone.

Occasionally, you'll get chemical smells from pizza ovens on their first burn, but that's not the case with the Ooni Koda. This had a really clean smell and the base of the oven was 342 degrees all over after twenty minutes, which is record time for me. So, I turned down the fierceness of the gas flame and got cooking.

The first (and arguably the most important) test that I put all pizza ovens through is making pizzas. I made ten different pizzas in here: margheritas, marinara, vegetable pizzas, pepperoni pizzas, and garlic bread pizzas too. The first pizzas that I cooked were when I had the flames on pretty high and I found that, whilst the base was coking beautifully, some of my crusts were charring a lot.

Once I had turned down the flames to more of a mid-point, my pizzas were coming out pretty perfectly. The base had beautiful leopard-print spotting (a sign it's well cooked), the crusts puffed up, and all my cheese was golden and perfectly melted on top. It took all my willpower not to eat every single pizza that came out of the oven.

I handed over my peel to some beginners to see whether the size of the oven gave enough space to really move and check the pizza in the oven well. I got a big thumbs up from the novices, who felt that the oven was really generous with size, both in width and height. They all felt confident that they could check their pizzas well.

I love how versatile pizza ovens can be, so I always make sure to do a skillet of vegetables too. This is a ten-inch cast iron skillet with mushrooms, peppers, courgettes, and onions packed into it, so you can see there's some space to play with in the oven.

At this point, the oven had been running for all ten pizzas, so it was pretty hot. I turned the skillet every thirty seconds for three minutes and ended up with these beautiful speckles on top. The vegetables were beautiful: soft and sweet in all the right places, with lovely charring and crispness on the edges. I can't fault it, except for the suggestion that you turn down the heat if you're using root vegetables, because these will need a lower and slower cook.

Nachos are my trick for when I'm hosting a pizza party. They only need a minute in the oven to crisp-up the nachos and melt the cheese and then everyone can tuck into them to whet their appetite.

In the interests of honesty, my nacho chips caught fire as soon as I out them in the oven. I didn't realise this for a little bit (I just thought the flames were really energetic).

If you look closely at the back of the skillet, you can see the burnt nachos. However, I picked around the ones at the back and my cheese melted, the nachos were warm, and everyone enjoyed them. As with my recommendation for vegetables, I'd say that turning the heat down gets better results for you.

I have a real sweet tooth, so I always make something sweet in my pizza oven. The classic for me is skillet chocolate chip cookies, which only need five minutes on the lowest heat. I rotated them every thirty seconds and ended up with these golden cookies. They were crisped-up on top, gooey in the middle, and utterly perfect, if I do say so myself.

Cleaning the Ooni Koda

Knowing how to clean a pizza oven will pay you dividends in terms of how long your pizza oven will last. You shouldn't get the pizza stone wet, so make sure that you have a brass brush to hand to brush the base of the pizza oven. This should lift any ingredients or brunt flour off the base. It will still look dark and burnt, but that's what a seasoned pizza oven looks like.

The good news is that there's a stainless steel lip on the edge of the oven, which you can wipe. I'd recommend keeping this clean, because it's a great place to bring out your food to check on how its cooking. It'll help to make the pizza oven look good too.

How does the Ooni Koda compare?

Image credit: Future

Image credit: Future

As far as gas pizza ovens go, Ooni's is exceptional value for money. At around £300, you won't find a cheaper oven that offers the same build-quality. However, if you're worried about spinning your pizza oven, you have options.

For another £200, you could get the Morso Forno Spin. This looks really sleek and slick, almost like a pebble. The mouth is actually even wider than the Ooni Koda's. Moreover, the base of it actually electronically rotates, which means that you don't need to sit by the pizza oven and spin the food yourself. It's a luxury touch that very few ovens can boast, but it makes a big difference to the time that you can give to your guests (you don't need to sit by the pizza oven). Also, as a beginner, it's brilliant not to have to worry about rotating the pizzas. You'll save yourself a lot of wasted dough.

If you like the pricepoint of the Ooni Koda, but you're keen to play with the fuel types that you're using, the Ooni Karu is only £50 more and it's compatible with wood too. The downside is that you need to buy a gas adapter for the Karu separately and it comes with a chimney, which does take up more space, but it enables you to be a lot more versatile with what you cook. I also liked having a glass door, which can trap in heat for low and slow cooking, but also it lets you keep an eye on your food without feeling like your eyebrows are being burned off. If you won't use wood, I'd take the saving and go for the Koda, However, if you're a playful cook, the Karu is tempting.

Should you buy the Ooni Koda?

As an inexpensive, gas-powered pizza oven, the Ooni Koda is brilliant. It's spacious, well-made, and makes a really evenly-cooked pizza. Given that you save some money, I'd recommend also getting a good stand and case for your pizza oven, because these will elevate it and make it more of a statement piece.

How we test pizza ovens

At woman&home, I test all of our pizza ovens. There's a good reason for it. My family runs a pizza business and they have done for over a decade, so I have grown up with pizzas all around me. You'd think I'd be sick of them, but I'm not. I'm totally fascinated by them.

When I'm testing a pizza oven, I'm looking for lots of key factors. Of course, it needs to cook a pizza well (crisp base, fluffy crusts, golden, melted cheese), but it should be versatile enough to roast vegetables, make cookies, and warm nachos for you.

I go through everything you need to know before buying a pizza oven, from how it compares to other models on the market, through to what it needs in terms of cleaning and maintenance. By the end of my review, you should know everything that you need to before buying a pizza oven. If you have a burning question (or burning pizza), send me an email. I'm always happy to chat.

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