Adding a pizza oven to your existing outdoor kitchen used to be a cumbersome, costly initiative involving construction plans, land-use permits, and a reliable building contractor. However with the launch this fall of its new Artisan Fire Pizza Oven, Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet has simplified the process. “There is a certain romance built into this oven,” explains Kalamazoo president Pantelis “Pete” Georgiadis, who says the Michigan-based company has taken all the best features and cooking characteristics found in traditional brick-lined, wood-fired pizza ovens and wrapped them in an elegant gas-fired stainless-steel package “to deliver a better, more unique cooking experience.”
The new Artisan Fire ($6,495) is a sleek, compact (30-inch wide, 30-inch deep, 19¾-inch tall), heavy-gauge pizza oven that rests on any outdoor counter surface and connects to a standard 20-pound LP gas bottle or natural gas line. Despite its compressed size, the two independently controlled burners, another first, allow the oven to deliver heat up to 800 degrees—the optimal temperature for baking pizzas and calzones—in under 20 minutes. The completely weather-resistant oven also incorporates a stone-lined ceiling and a composite baking stone that, at its peak heat, allows the most complex Neapolitan-style pizzas to cook in less than 2 minutes.
