Gozney Arc Review: This New Pizza Oven Is Compact, Powerful and User-Friendly
Updated: Apr. 04, 2024
Featuring high temperatures for cooking pizza with a compact design! Read on for our full review of the Gozney Arc pizza oven.
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Pizza ovens continue to offer people the opportunity to get creative with cooking pizzas at home. You can use an outdoor pizza oven in the yard or on a deck, or even cook restaurant-quality pizza at high temperatures in an indoor pizza oven, such as the Ooni Volt. As a former bakery owner and pizza enthusiast, I have tested 9 different pizza ovens across a variety of brands, including the Ooni pizza ovens, Solo Stove pizza oven, Blackstone pizza oven and the Gozney Roccbox.
While Gozney pizza ovens have been available for several years now, the brand came out with a new pizza oven—the Gozney Arc—in March 2024. It combines the features of both the compact, portable Roccbox with the eye-catching, larger Gozney Dome to crank out pizzas in 60 to 90 seconds. Here’s what we learned as we put it to the test.
What Is the Gozney Arc Pizza Oven?
The gas-powered Gozney Arc pizza oven is the latest addition to Gozney’s line-up, following its popular Gozney Roccbox and statement-making Gozney Dome pizza ovens. The oven has a similar dome style shape and design, but a smaller footprint. It takes up far less space, allowing you to easily set it on a heat-safe table or on Gozney’s Arc stand, which is sold separately.
It has a durable bone white outer coating and black detailing, including a flue outlet on the top. The oven is two-way insulated, with a pizza stone at the base. The pizza oven’s ignition gauge and heat dial are on the front right, with a battery-operated digital thermometer on the front for easy temperature reading. The oven weighs 47.5 pounds with an opening of 14.8 inches by 3.74 inches, allowing space for cooking 14-inch pizzas.
VIA MERCHANT
We Tried It
Gozney Arc Pizza Oven
Get set up to enjoy homemade pizza with ease, whether you're hosting pizza parties or firing a pie for Tuesday night dinner.
How We Tested It
Set-Up
The Gozney Arc came in a well-packed box, with very little assembly required. All I needed to do was pull the oven out of the box. The stone was already secured in the pizza oven, so all that was left to do was remove the battery tab from the thermometer and hook the hose up to a propane tank to make the entire unit ready to light and use.
Cooking Pizzas
Firing up the Gozney Arc with its front-side ignition dial is simple. While cooking multiple pizzas across multiple days, I found it took about 25 to 30 minutes for the oven to preheat, reaching a temperature of 850 to 900 degrees in that time. Of course, that allows for plenty of time for gathering and chopping toppings ahead of making and launching pizzas.
The most significant difference of the Arc design is its large, rolling flame on the left side. It absolutely cranks out heat, with my oven reaching close to 950 degrees. The flame rolls up and over the inside of the oven, which is how it got its name the Arc. The hot stone cooks the base of the pizza, while the arcing flame evenly cooks the pizza on the top.
Of course, it will still be hotter on the side with the flame, so keeping watch and turning the pizza while cooking is necessary. However, with its smaller flame footprint, I didn’t feel like I needed to constantly turn the pizza so frequently for an even cook. The supreme heat retention and flame design helped me consistently cook beautiful, delicious pizzas in under two minutes every time. It’s important to note I did try cooking pizzas on a particularly windy day, with high wind gusts, and found that the flame would sometimes blow out and needed to be reignited which didn’t take long.
The only thing I was disappointed with was the pizza peel and turning peel. The handles on both are incredibly long, which made it difficult for someone like me, with short arms and small hands, to maneuver the pizza as easily as I’m used to. Gozney sells other pizza tools including shorter perforated pizza peels and turners, which I think would suit me better for this particular oven. Of course, just like how you prefer to cut your pizza, whether with a pizza cutter or rocker, those tools are all up to personal preference.
Cleaning
After making several pizzas, I had a small amount of burnt flour residue left on the stone. Abrasive materials and soap should not be used to clean a pizza stone. Instead, it was simple enough to leave the oven on full flame to cook off residue on the stone. There was a very small amount of soot on the front of the oven near the flue, but wiping it with a damp cloth cleaned it up quickly and effectively.
Gozney Arc Pizza Oven Features
Gozney is known for its large Dome pizza oven, which mimics that of a restaurant pizza oven. The Gozney Arc is very similar to that well-loved oven, just shrunk down while maintaining quality. The Gozney Arc is 18.9 inches wide by 13.5 inches high with a depth of 22.2 inches. It provides plenty of space, with a wide opening, without taking up too much room outside wherever you plan to use it.
Its sleek bone white exterior is eye-catching, with contrasting black detailing including the front-right temperature dial and large print digital thermometer. The top flue is helpful for allowing heat to purposely escape before getting out through the front of the oven, which makes for better temperature regulation. The gas hose and regulator hooks up in the back, and the regulator makes it easy to plug and play. The stone is nestled tightly into the floor of the pizza oven, but it does come with a stone adjustment tool in case you need to move or remove the stone.
Pros
- Reaches over 900 degrees to cook pizzas in 90 seconds
- Compact design doesn’t take up much space
- Unique arc flame provides even cooking and heat retention
Cons
- Necessary tools such as pizza peel sold separately
Product Comparison
This pizza oven is modeled after Gozney’s Dome pizza oven, which was designed as a professional grade oven. The shrunk down Arc version is almost 10 inches smaller in width and allows for the same excellent flame power and heat retention, but in a more compact size. It’s not quite as portable as the Gozney Roccbox, which has folding legs and a strong carry strap, but it is small enough to move around as needed. The Roccbox also has a rolling flame at the back, rather than the left-side arc flame in the Gozney Arc.
In comparison to Ooni pizza oven options like the Ooni Koda 16, this oven performs similarly. However, the Koda has a large L-shaped flame on the left interior, which can make the learning curve of avoiding burning pizzas a bit steeper. With all of the pizza oven testing I’ve conducted, I’ve never seen the design and operation of a flame quite like this. It allows for consistently great pizza every time, without worrying too much about constantly turning the pizza or getting too much char on one side.
Final Verdict
Gozney sought to combine performance with a compact design in this pizza oven, while also offering a user-friendly option for those looking to master making pizza at home. And they definitely succeeded.
The pizza oven is sleek and eye-catching, yet won’t take up too much space on your deck, patio or anywhere else in the backyard. It’s simple to set up, gets incredibly hot and holds heat well and is easy to use. It’s gas-powered, so there’s no learning curve for cooking with wood, and the temperature dial makes it easier to know if your oven is hot enough to start cooking pizzas to perfection in no time.
Where to Buy the Gozney Arc Pizza Oven
The Gozney Arc pizza oven retails for $699 and is available on Gozney’s website, Amazon and Home Depot. Get set up to enjoy homemade pizza with ease, whether you’re hosting pizza parties or firing a pie for Tuesday night dinner.
VIA MERCHANT
We Tried It
Gozney Arc Pizza Oven
Get set up to enjoy homemade pizza with ease, whether you're hosting pizza parties or firing a pie for Tuesday night dinner.
Originally Published: April 04, 2024
