Derek Gaughan
Breville was first to market in the US with a true indoor pizza oven – and the performance continues to hold up years later. The Breville Pizzaiolo originally launched in 2018 but later re-launched around 2020 with some new changes (we’ll talk about this soon).
The Pizzaiolo markets itself as being able to bake true Neapolitans, something the Chefman Home Slice and Cuisinart Indoor Pizza Oven failed to do. Luckily for us, Breville is truthful in their claims; you can get really solid Neapolitan pizza out of this oven.
When comparing performance to cost, this is the most direct comparison to the Ooni Volt. But this Breville has one really incredible feature that’s missing from the Volt. Let’s unbox this and test it out so you can see it in action.
VIDEO: Breville Pizzaiolo indoor pizza oven review
Test Results: The Breville Pizzaiolo is a serious performer, capable of both New York style and Neapolitan.
Unboxing
I’ve been buying a lot of pizza ovens lately, so to save an extra hundred and fifty dollars, I grabbed an open-box one from Amazon. The box saw better days, but the oven itself was perfect.
The pizza stone is really small. Only 11 and ¾ inches; so keep this in mind when making your dough. I really wish it was an inch bigger since a lot of people aim to make 12″ Neapolitans. But it’s like this for a reason: the round stone was introduced in the revamped 2020 model which solved one big thing. Without perfect placement under the burner, you would get a very unevenly cooked pizza. By keeping it a round stone with a deflector directly behind it, you have no choice but to line the pizza up perfectly with the burner.
Inside, you’ll also find a really nice carbon steel pan with a removable handle, which can be great for cooking vegetables or searing steak. The pizza peel on the other hand, is horrible. They went for looks instead of function. The front of it is so heavy, the metal flops around and it doesn’t even have a pizza on it yet.
Design
I really like the looks of the black version. It reminds me of a Smeg refrigerator or an old-school appliance with the shiny chrome handles – back when things were made to last. But for some reason, the full stainless steel version reminds me more of a toaster oven.
At 18.1″ wide and 18.5″ deep (10.6″ tall), it’s really quite compact compared to most other pizza ovens. However, with it being a bit more compact, I think it lacks a bit in insulation because the oven can get a bit hot (but not at a dangerous level).
When you open the door, the pizza stone pulls down and outward, allowing more overhead room for launching. This is an interesting feature that I kind of feel neutral about – it’s squeaky and I wonder if it’s just more things to break. And just a heads up, the door doesn’t stay open until you put the pizza stone in. I guess it requires the weight of the stone to hold the door down.
The default controls include multiple pizza presets, including frozen, pan, New York, thin & crispy, and “wood fired”, in addition to a timer and a darkness setting. But this is where it starts to get interesting.
A magnet is included to change the timer control into an adjustable deck temp. Pretty cool, right? To do this, press and hold the timer button in, turn the temp to 350, then release the timer button. You’ll see the LED flash 3 times to confirm. Now we can set the stone temperature to anything we want, giving a lot more adjustability in our bake.
Performance
For this Breville Pizzaiolo review, I’ll test out multiple Neapolitan and New York style pizzas using both factory presets and manual settings to see which performs better. Then, I’ll compare the Breville Pizzaiolo to the Ooni Volt to see which one is better.
Neapolitan Test #1
For my first Neapolitan, I’ll test it on max heat – both top and bottom burners set to 750. After 18 minutes, it reached temp and I launched it. A round peel could come in handy here, my Chefman 12” square peel was hitting the metal deflector in the back. I switched to the Gozney Roccbox peel which worked a bit better.
I baked on for a minute and 42 seconds. And I’ll tell you what, I’m seeing a lot of potential here. The cheese didn’t overcook before the crust got some color, which is common for cheaper indoor pizza ovens. But the bottom got too dark.
Neapolitan Test #2
So I set the stone temp to 700, which should let us get a little more crust color on top. I baked this again for exactly 1 minute 42 seconds, and with excellent results. An airy crust and a solid bottom. I’m very impressed so far for these being my first pizzas.
Neapolitan Test #3
Using the same temperature settings as above, but leaving the pizza in for 10 seconds longer (1 minute 52 seconds) results in the below. Perfect, in my opinion. This was a bit of a hybrid Neapolitan, using a 65% hydration poolish but using low moisture mozzarella (typically found on New York style). So let’s take a ride to NY!
New York Style Test
I let the oven cool off and switched it out of manual mode to try the New York preset. Once the preheat finished, my stone temp read 576 degrees. I launched a pizza and set the timer for the suggested 7 minutes. Since it was a longer bake, I decided to rotate the pizza once halfway through. Again, very solid results here. I cooked this with the “darkness” setting in the middle.
Top Control Test: Crust Only
So I decided to test that feature out. I switched back to manual mode, and cooked another New York at 600 bottom and 625 top. But halfway through the bake I turned the top control to “crust only”. And take a look at what it does to the top burner.
The middle burner shuts down, and pushes all the power to the edge. I absolutely love this feature. It allows a lot of fine-tuning to prevent overcooked cheese or to give darker crusts. Turns out, it’s patent-pending, so that could explain why we haven’t seen any others with it.
Overall, there’s a lot to like here. We finally have another indoor pizza oven that’s capable of airy Neapolitan crusts while staying under the 2 minute mark. The top burner design is incredible and there’s so many ways to fine-tune your bake. I just wish the pizza stone was an inch bigger. And then there’s the price. At $1,000, this is now $100 more than the Ooni Volt – which just had a price cut. As much as I like the top burner, you have to go with the Ooni Volt until Breville follows suit with a price cut.
