The Pizzas I Made When I Lived in Italy Were the Best I Ever Had. This Outdoor Oven Transports Me Back.

While most home ovens don’t exceed much beyond 500 °F, the Ooni Koda 16 maxes out at 950 °F. Those additional 450 degrees allow a pizza to cook from start to finish in 60 to 90 seconds, with just a rotation or two using a pizza peel to ensure all sides are cooked evenly (the back of the oven is hotter and cooks faster than the front).

This limited exposure to extremely high temperatures ensures a crust that is crispy on the exterior and chewy inside and keeps the toppings from becoming overcooked. (Think: a cheese pull that will make your mouth water at the mere sight of it.)

I first came across the Ooni Koda 16 last summer while shooting a video with supervising kitchen editor Marilyn Ong, who not only whipped up pizzas in her Ooni oven but also showed off its versatility. Marilyn showed me how she uses it to roast vegetables like carrots and cauliflower, and even a whole fish.

 

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Senior staff writer Lesley Stockton, who has tested six ovens for our guide to the best pizza ovens since 2021, even whipped up a batch of bubbling, cheesy oysters Rockefeller in the Ooni Koda 16. “No other cooking appliance in my kitchen could’ve come close to delivering such a stellar dish,” she wrote.

“I love the size of the Koda 16,” Marilyn says. “We can make full 12-inch pizzas with plenty of room to rotate the pizza halfway through—a must to avoid charred crusts before the cheese melts.”

I’ve seen the Ooni Koda 16 marketed as portable because of its compact size (about as big as a snow saucer sled at 25 by 23.2 by 14.7 inches), and although I can’t see myself packing it up and traveling with it (it’s nearly 40 pounds), I do appreciate that it doesn’t take up much space on my cozy Brooklyn terrace. I even keep it outside year-round under the brand’s polyester cover.

I do miss the wood-fired brick ovens we used in Puglia for the smoky, earthy elements imbued into the pizza, but what this Ooni oven lacks in rustic romance it makes up for with the ease of use of the gas-powered feature—just turn a nozzle.

Firing up the Ooni Koda 16 every Sunday and throwing a small pizza party for a handful of friends became a ritual that gave my husband and me something to look forward to through the cold, gray days of winter. We’d cozy up around the kitchen table, nursing beverages and blasting through coloring books with our daughter, only darting out to the terrace to quickly pop the pizzas in and out of the oven. I’ve also relied on the pizza oven to feed groups at birthday parties and reunions for friends visiting from overseas.

The ease of setting up the Ooni Koda 16 and the impressively short cook time—only about a minute—allows us to bring an element of spontaneity into our pizza nights, which was how the pizza parties we attended in Puglia always seemed to coalesce (our Italian friends had mastered the ease of the impromptu, yet still impeccable, gathering).

Although my typical routine involves my sourdough recipe, which calls for at least a day of prep time for the stretch-and-fold process and proofing, we do have a neighborhood pizzeria that sells its dough, so we can whip together a pizza night in a half hour, in a pinch.

My husband and I play equal roles in these pizza-making endeavors: I tend to be the dough girl, we tag-team the toppings, and he’s usually the one to place the uncooked pizzas into the Ooni oven with a flick of the peel, maneuver them as they cook, and remove them before the crust gets too dark.

Some of our go-to creations these days are a sausage and banana-pepper pie, a dill pickle pizza with a pickle juice béchamel for the base, and when we’re throwing a brunch bash, a bacon, egg, and cheese pizza with everything bagel seasoning on the crust. (The latter two of which our Italian friends find blasphemous but still delicious, might I add.)

The Ooni Koda 16 is the magic that delivers perfect pizza crusts, but when purchasing it, you get only the appliance itself, without any bells and whistles needed to operate it. Buying these separately can add up quickly.

Because this oven relies on propane or natural gas, you need a propane tank or natural gas line.

Since the Ooni Koda 16 is an outdoor pizza oven, you’ll probably want to buy a cover to protect it from the elements, too. I use one from Ooni, which has kept mine safe through a New York City winter, but our kitchen team is currently comparing third-party covers to see what buyers are giving up if they don’t go with the brand-name option. Marilyn’s Ooni oven is currently housed in a $22 cover that has served her well over the last few months.

And if you don’t already have a pizza peel, you can tack that onto the order—ideally a wooden or bamboo one for loading the dough into the oven, and a metal one for rotating and removing it. Ooni sells both, but we recommend the Epicurean Pizza Peel in our guide: “We used and washed this peel numerous times over the course of testing, and it has yet to warp.”

Rather than putting the Ooni oven on the floor, invest in a solid table (I recommend a sturdy stainless steel one) to put it on so you don’t have to do a sumo squat when you’re taking the pizzas in and out of it.

Cleaning the Ooni Koda 16 is an incredibly fuss-free process. Pizzas are baked on a 16-inch stone baking board, which only requires a simple swipe of a damp washcloth once it has cooled off (and sometimes, I just dust the crumbs off the stone surface onto the terrace).

Or you can try Marilyn’s cleanup method: “When we get cheesy, saucy messes on the stone (hey, it’s gonna happen), we just turn up the heat, let it burn for 20 minutes or so, then scoot all the charred bits to the back of the oven, where they’ll basically burn away to oblivion. I’ve had mine for about a year and have not had to do much more than that to keep it cranking without issue.”

Although I use it primarily for our weekly pizza parties, I know that its cooking power extends beyond perfectly yeasty, chewy, toasted pizzas and into a whole world of culinary delights, and I’m excited to continue using it for a whole assortment of future meals. In the meantime, I will float contentedly through New York City’s harsh winters and humid summers feeling, however briefly, like I just might be back in southern Italy.

This article was edited by Alex Aciman and Catherine Kast.