If you have the budget and the counter space, the Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo is an incredible and capable appliance for making authentic pizzas right at home.
In 2010, Kenji’s article ‘Bringing Neapolitan Pizza Home’ stated, “It’s impossible to make restaurant-quality Neapolitan pizza at home.” Kenji was clear that even the most skilled pizza makers couldn’t replicate Neapolitan pies in home kitchens, due to the limitations of conventional ovens.
The key to Neapolitan pizza is a blistering hot oven with a deck temperature of at least 700F (370C). Most home ovens max out at 550F (290C), leading to longer cooking times, less charring, and a compromised texture in the dough.
Kenji’s workaround techniques for home-kitchen Neapolitan pizza produce good results, but they don’t compare to wood-oven pies. However, at-home pizza-oven technology has improved significantly over the past decade.
The Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo is a countertop electric pizza oven that can reach 750F (400C), and it’s about the size of a large microwave oven. Kenji tested it and then shipped it to Serious Eats HQ for further evaluation.
For the initial test run, the goal was to see how well the Breville performs in making Neapolitan pizzas and compare those results with pizzas made using Kenji’s oven-broiled method.
I made six different batches of Neapolitan-style dough, experimenting with different varieties of flour and hydration levels. To get a side-by-side comparison for each dough, I baked one pie using the Breville and one using the conventional oven. I kept the toppings pretty classic—traditional margherita; marinara (which, in Italy, is not a term for tomato sauce but rather refers to a cheeseless tomato pie with garlic and oregano); and some margherita pies jazzed up with little gobs of spicy ‘nduja.
For the pizzas baked in the Breville Pizzaiolo, I used the machine’s programmed “wood fired” setting, which bakes pies in the range of 700F (370C) to 725F (385C) for two minutes.
Bringing the Heat
The first thing that impressed me about the Breville was how easy it is to operate, and how quickly it heats up. As I mentioned above, for this trial run, I used one of the machine’s preset programs, which takes care of both regulating the oven temperature and timing the bake of the pizza once it’s in the oven.
Along with the “wood fired” setting, there are programs for frozen, pan, New York, and thin-and-crispy pizza, which you can toggle on a dial similar to that found on a traditional toaster oven. If you prefer to control the temperature and time yourself, there’s a “manual” mode that lets you do just that, allowing you to crank the temperature from the minimum (350F) all the way up to 750F.
The Breville Pizzaiolo plugs into a regular outlet and draws 1,800 watts of power to heat up the oven’s three coil heating elements—one underneath the ceramic deck, and two concentric coils above the deck. These heating elements, paired with the oven’s well-designed insulation, can bring the oven up to baking temperature in just 15 minutes. That’s crazy fast. In comparison, our oven-broiler method calls for preheating a Baking Steel or pizza stone for at least 45 minutes prior to baking.
And then there’s the issue of temperature recovery time between pizzas. The Breville recovers its target temperature in the time it takes to stretch and top the next pizza, while a regular home oven takes some toggling (switching from broil back to bake) and at least a few minutes to come back up to temp.
The Breville actually allows you to have a fun, fast-paced production line for your pizza party. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten frustrated with all the waiting around between rounds of pies when hosting a pizza night, with guests unsure over whether to dig in while the pizza was hot or wait for more pizzas to come out of the oven. While you can still bake only one pizza at a time using the Breville, even a novice pizzaiolo can churn them out at a much faster clip.
The Bake
As for the results, the Breville oven produced, hands down, the best Neapolitan pizza I’ve ever made in a home kitchen. I grew up in Italy, I’ve worked a wood-burning-pizza-oven station in a restaurant kitchen, and I eat Neapolitan pies here in New York on a weekly basis.
The Breville Pizzaiolo is damn impressive. A pizza topped with ‘nduja, baked in the Breville Pizzaiolo oven. Just check out the leopard – spotting that it’s able to produce. I’ve never come close to that with a regular home oven.
Comparison of the undercarriage of pizzas baked in the Breville Pizzaiolo oven (left) and in a conventional oven (right). And the same goes for the undercarriage. Even using MacGyver – esque tricks, it’s almost impossible to consistently get proper charring on the underside of a pie using a home oven. Above is a side – by – side comparison of the underside of a pizza made using the Breville and one baked on a Baking Steel in a regular oven. No contest. Comparison of pizzas baked in the Breville Pizzaiolo oven (left) and in a conventional oven (right). Here’s how their top sides compare. You can see how it’s possible to get char on the cornicione of a pie in a regular oven, but to do that, the pizza has to be in the oven much longer, which adversely affects other components. The crust of the pizza on the right is much more dehydrated and crunchy, lacking the airy puffiness of the pizza on the left, which was baked in the Breville oven. The toppings are also overcooked: The mozzarella is starting to brown, the basil is on the edge of burnt, and the sauce is dried out. Don’t get me wrong—both pizzas were still delicious. But if you’re a stickler for pizza details, the Breville produces a much better Neapolitan pie. The Cons So are there any drawbacks to this wonder gadget? Of course! Nothing is perfect, and the Breville Pizzaiolo is no exception. First off: the price. This machine will run you a cool $1000. That ain’t cheap. If you spend $15 on a margherita from your local pizzeria, you could have one pizza a week for a year for that kind of money. I’ve personally never dropped anywhere close to that kind of cash on a single piece of kitchen equipment, and I have some pretty decent knives in my knife kit. Following that line of thought, I use my knives every day. I do not make pizza every day. While the folks at Breville point out that you can use the Pizzaiolo to cook things besides pizza, you’re essentially buying a very, very expensive unitasker. Second, it takes up a lot of space. On the one hand, this machine is only a little bigger than a large microwave oven; on the other, you must position it on a counter to operate it. That eats up a lot of kitchen real estate, something that’s at a premium for most of us. I barely have room for a coffee maker in my kitchen, so a pizza oven is definitely out of the question. That said, if I had Ina Garten’s kitchen and bank account, I’d absolutely buy one of these immediately. Third, it doesn’t bake pizzas perfectly. Despite its advanced heating – element technology, the Breville oven doesn’t heat completely evenly. As you can see in the photo below, there are definite hot spots that can lead to portions of over – charred crust.Rotating your pizza halfway through the cooking process can alleviate hot-spot issues, although the high cost of the ‘smart oven’ may deter beginner cooks from handling high temperatures around 750F.
Apart from the oven’s hot-spot problems, the low clearance between the oven deck and upper heating elements may affect the puffy cornicione of a Neapolitan pizza. Big air bubbles can come too close to the heating elements and char before the pizza finishes baking. It’s crucial to consider this when stretching pies, which should not exceed 12 inches in diameter. Neapolitan-pizza perfectionists may argue that baking in an electric oven sacrifices the flavor found in a real wood-burning oven. While there’s truth to that, most don’t have a wood oven at home. Those who do will tell you it’s a lot of work: purchasing and storing wood, building the fire, getting the oven to temperature, and maintaining heat. There’s an appeal to a machine you can plug in, set, and use to bake a very legitimate Neapolitan pizza in under 30 minutes. The Verdict: I was quite impressed with the Breville Pizzaiolo. It’s an intuitive piece of equipment that produces spectacular Neapolitan pizza in a home kitchen. I’m excited to experiment with different pie styles and test other cooking applications, like steakhouse-style broiler beef. The key specs include stainless steel materials, dimensions of 18.1 x 18.5 x 10.6 inches, 7 presets with a manual mode, and a pizza peel and pan as included accessories. It can handle 12-inch pizzas and comes with a 2-year limited warranty. FAQs: Can you use the Breville Pizzaiolo for more than pizza? While it’s not ideal for high-springing sourdough bread due to low clearance, it can cook flatbreads and some vegetables. Does the Breville Pizzaiolo come with a warranty? Yes, it comes with a two-year limited product warranty. How do you clean a Breville Pizzaiolo pizza stone? Breville recommends wiping the pizza stone with a damp sponge after each use, once it’s cooled. For thorough cleaning, wash the stone by hand with warm soapy water and a firm sponge, avoiding the dishwasher and soaking. To find the best outdoor pizza ovens, extensive testing was conducted.
