I’ve mastered the Gozney Arc Lite – I’ll never order takeout pizza again 

I love a good pizza. Good pizza for me is leopard spotted with a puffy crust and a thin, light and airy base with toppings to suit my mood and the seasons… While supermarket pizzas don’t really do it for me, the wood-fired offerings from my local pizzeria certainly do, but the cost stops me ordering often. Also, despite reviewing tech for a living, I’ve shied away from getting involved with home pizza ovens until now because I simply don’t have space for a gargantuan oven in my garden. I wrote the home-pizza-dream off until the Gozney Arc Lite was released earlier this month…

A modestly sized pizza oven

I heard about the Arc Lite a little early, when I interviewed Tom Gozney who mentioned the new compact model, which piqued my interest. The Arc Light has been designed to deliver the chef-level performance, for which Gozney pizza ovens are renowned, but in a small and lightweight design, that makes 12in pizzas. You can place it on whatever you have at home – no stand needed. It costs £350 /$400, which in the world of pizza ovens is palatable – the most expensive Gozney oven, the Dome XL, costs a whopping £2499. 

As sad as it sounds, I was quite excited to see the box for the Gozney Arc Lite didn’t look like I could take up residence in it. Design wise, the Arc Lite is in keeping with the rest of the Gozney range – styling doesn’t look watered down at all – it’s a thing of considerable beauty and, as you can see, deserves more than my humble camping table to sit on. Proportions are compact at 16.9in x 18.9in x 11.7in – good for modest gardens and balconies. At 12 kg it was easy to get out of the box and I knew, if we became friends, I’d be taking it on my next camping trip too. 

Let’s get this fire started

I’d brought a propane gas bottle and regulator before the Arc Lite was delivered, so I was good to go when it arrived. I decided to use it the same day it was delivered, but I was too excited to allow dough to rise so I nipped to the shops for some Pizza Express ready to roll dough and we were on. Unboxing through to first fire took no more than ten minutes – I simply slid the stone into the oven and installed the burner guard and I was ready to go. 

Using the Arc Lite couldn’t really be easier – it’s arguably as easy as the Char-Broil Smart-E BBQ, which I rate highly for fuss-free outdoor cooking. To light the gas burner, you simply press the control dial inwards and turn the dial to the 9 o’clock position, when you hear and click and the burner ignites, which takes a few seconds. You continue to hold the control dial like for about 20-30 seconds – it feels intuitive, to disengage the Flame Failure Device, then release and the burner stays lit. 

The Arc Lite hits an impressive 500°C through its signature lateral flame, which rolls around the top of the oven. It heats up faster than I expected, in around twenty minutes using highly flame, as suggested by Gozney.

Perfect Pizza? 

Aside from using enough flour on the peel and getting use to rotating pizza while cooking, which was made easier with the Gozney turning peel, I found the trick to cooking the perfect pizza was getting to know the adjustable flame dial. This dial is how you control the heat – it has two clear colour-coded zones: red for high heat, which you use to preheat the oven and to cook thin base pizzas quickly. Neapolitan-style pizzas with thin bases and puffy crusts cooked in two minutes or less. I burnt the first one, as is to be expected but the second one was when I decided I wouldn’t be ordering in pizza again. 

There’s also a blue zone on the dial for lower, slower cooking, for New York-style pizzas. The steady heat on the Arc Lite meant toppings weren’t burnt when I did a thick base pizza and did indeed achieve a well-cooked base with crispy crust. 

I’m still experimenting with making my own dough and enjoying the process of making my own pizzas from scratch. What I have been surprised by is that we now have pizza in the garden at least once week (even when it’s been raining, thanks to our pergola) and everyone looks forward to it and helps out. Might sound small but the pizza ritual in our house has changed our weekly routine and created an extra pocket of family time. Who is picking up that good pepperoni and who can make the best pizza according to my eight-year-old… It’s good old-fashioned connection over food and I’m here for it. 

No going back to takeout

The Arc Lite has made cooking pizzas at home a lot of fun and it’s more than delivered on results too – we haven’t ordered takeout pizza, or ordered pizza from a restaurant menu, since it arrived. I intend to perfect my dough making and experiment with more adventurous toppings, before moving on to master cooking meat in it. Is this the end of me and the BBQ?

• Read more: Tom Gozney, the man behind the pizza ovens of the stars, on addiction, having a design vision and saying no to cooking with an app