Routinely popping up across our social media, the Ooni pizza oven could no longer be ignored so we have been giving the Fyra model an outing. This one uses authentic wooden pellets as its heat source and it's been our designated pizza cooker through the height of British summertime, whilst we find out if the Ooni can become a firm lockdown al fresco culinary favourite.

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Design

We’re not unfamiliar with outdoor pizza oven designs and have reviewed a fair few over the years. However, the Scottish designed Fyra is uniquely uncomplicated in the way it works and looks. Removing all of the bulk that we’ve typically come to accept with portable pizza oven designs, no space is wasted or taken, thanks to the nifty folding legs and the dimensional choice of the oven itself: which is shaped to fulfil the ambition of fast heat up times and heat retention. The squatly chiselled black powder coated carbon steel shell and stainless steel chimney and pellet hopper, are both seriously well fabricated. Reaching temperatures hovering around 500°C, the body is still solid and there’s absolutely no warping of any kind following regular usage.

The versatility of where it can be used, thanks to the nifty folding legs that thankfully don’t penetrate the heat onto wooden surfaces, definitely increases the temptation to have all you can eat stone baked pizza outside in the garden or on the beach all the way into late summer evenings, where it can be both your oven and snug heat source as the sun goes down. Our only niggle would be that it deserves to have the carry bag included within the box and not sold separately. Whilst the pizza oven doesn’t have a grand footprint, the bag is pretty much essential for orderly 'carry-ability' and storage.

Setup > Clean-up

Getting going is very straightforward and it’s the perfect design for beginners as it basically takes care of itself after being lit. Fill the hopper with wooden pellets (supplied in moisture proof packaging - ideal for storing in sheds and garages), light a fire starter and wait for 15 minutes to allow the oven to reach temperatures of 500°C - should be evident when the pellets are glowing. The pellet hopper holds a reasonable quantity of pellets that automatically feed into the heat source to keep the temperature a constant high, so all you have to do is top up the hopper every 20 minutes or so. If you intend to keep it alight for 1-2hrs it will burn through a significant amount of fuel, which worth keeping in mind. When you’ve finished, obviously wait for the Ooni to cool down, then we've found all that is needed is to give it a wipe with some damp kitchen roll to clean off soot, remove the pizza stone for a soak - and you’re done!

One massive oversight so many first timers make is not being ready and thus wasting prime pizza cooking time. It's imperative to have your ingredients ready, so you can prep for the next pizza as soon as one hits the oven. On a sweltering hot summer's day our pizzas were ready in less then 40 seconds!

Cooking & Eating

The gentle odour of wood smoke and the ensemble of ingredients such as garlic, tomato and onion, makes for an outdoor culinary experience that’s better than the BBQ in our estimation, and with the ease of the Ooni, more enjoyable too. The extremity of the heat retaining design allows cheeses to caramelise, tomatoes to release sweeter profiles, and harder raw vegetables visibly lose their firm bite as the moisture evaporates. An initial concern we had about the sheer speed of cooking was a soggy base. Fear not though; even with wetter doughs and moisture rich veg topped pizzas there have been no complaints. Our thin to medium bases developed puffed crusts with an even bake, all complementary to the design of the Ooni pizza oven and the stone itself. Eating slice after gently wood-smoke infused slice just as it comes out the oven, it’s clear that the Ooni Fyra is a genuine scaled down pizza oven that can yield results you would easily believe had been produced from your local pizzeria.

Like any pizza oven there’s a learning curve involved in getting the feel for timings and also the all important wrist action of manoeuvring the unbaked pizza efficiently from the Ooni paddle (sold separately) onto the pizza stone. Opening the oven does draw a lot of heat out, so it’s important to develop this technique for heat retention; and anyway it's uncomfortably hot being in front of the open oven for a prolonged duration. Under normal conditions 60 seconds is the length of time it will take to cook a pizza within the oven and it does need to be turned halfway through for evenness. Leave it untended for longer and you’ll have charred areas to eat around; it’s unbelievably fast at cooking pizza!  There’s a community emerging around the Ooni and many are cooking things beyond the circular food it was originally designed for because of the temperatures it comfortably reaches and retains. It is is well worth checking out the creativity of other people on Instagram.

*After our review was published we received the new Ooni Sourdough Balls (24 for £39.99) to try. Well deserving of a mention as it takes the ease of use of the Ooni to another level. These moorish pizza bases are deliciously rich in flavour and the dough can be frozen so you can make pizza on impulse if you leave an hour for the defrosting.

Verdict

When you slice it all ways, the Ooni Fyra is the most encouraging pizza oven we’ve yet to use. A design that’s undemanding to operate, cooks a pizza in 60 seconds and there’s no arduous clean-up when finished. Al fresco culinary dining at its most enjoyable! Buy on Amazon