I'm a Pizza Sicko

My quest to make the perfect pie

- Saahil Desai

In pizza heaven, it is always 950 degrees. The temperature required to make an authentic Neapolitan pizza is stupidly, unbelievably hot-more blast furnace than broiler. My backyard pizza oven can get all the way there in just 15 minutes. Crank it to the max, and the Ooni Koda will gurgle up blue flames that bounce off the top of the dome. In 60 seconds, raw dough inflates into pillowy crust, cheese dissolves into the sauce, and a few simple ingredients become a full-fledged pizza.

Violinists have the Stradivarius. Sneakerheads have the Air Jordan 1. Pizza degenerates like me have the Ooni. I got my first one three years ago and have since been on a singular, pointless quest to make the best pie possible. Unfortunately, I am now someone who knows that dough should pass the windowpane test. Do not get me started on the pros and cons of Caputo 00 flour.

An at-home pizza oven is a patently absurd thing to buy. Much to my wife's consternation, I now own two. It's all the more ridiculous considering that I live in New York City, where amazing pizzerias are about as easy to spot as rats, and space is a precious commodity; this is not a town that favors single-use kitchen tools. These devices do one thing well (pizza) and only that one thing (pizza). My 12-inch Ooni is among the cheapest and smallest high-heat pizza ovens out there, and it still clocks in at $400 and 20 pounds. You can get an 11-in-1 combination Instant Pot and air fryer for a fraction of the cost.

But somehow, the portable-pizza-oven market is booming. Ooni makes nine different modelsincluding a $900 indoor version that's like a soupedup toaster oven and similar products are available from companies including Cuisinart, Ninja, Gozney, and Breville. Oprah included a pizza oven in her 2023 gift guide. Florence Pugh has Instagrammed her portable-oven odysseys.