ALL FIRED UP

A pizza oven brings woodfired goodness to the backyard and a sense of community, too, writes ALEXANDRA CARLTON.

A pizza oven brings woodfired goodness to the backyard and a sense of community.

There’s something deeply satisfying about tearing into the chewy, yeasty crust of a pizza baked with fire you’ve made with your own hands in your own backyard. The tastes of smoke and char can’t be recreated with anything other than enclosed ash and flame. “I think there’s a part of everyone that’s attracted to fire,” says Guy Stanaway, executive chef of Rare Hare cellar door on the Mornington Peninsula. His restaurant has a mighty woodfired oven at its core, though it fires up for dishes such as eggplant furikake and smoky “adult” chocolate-chip cookies rather than pizza. “There’s so much theatre, and everyone is mesmerised by watching the flames.”

That other popular backyard feature, the barbecue, also scores pretty highly for fiery spectacle. Why, then, are more pizza ovens occupying valuable outdoor space?

Part of the appeal is the human connection fostered by an oven. Unlike barbecues, which can smoke and spit, a woodfired oven is a warm, welcoming hearth for communion. “Australians love cooking outdoors, and while barbecues are great, in terms of something to gather around, a barbecue doesn’t really do it,” says Ben Guilford, director of The Melbourne Fire Brick Company. “It’s about bringing friends and family together.”

It’s not just about pizza, any more than a barbecue is about snags. The high heat of a woodfired oven means almost any food that could be cooked in a conventional oven can be quickly roasted with little effort, after a fair amount of trial and error.

The trick is to tend the flames and coals until the oven reaches an optimal temperature for the dish.

“We have customers who do their bacon and eggs in their pizza oven,” says Pat Polito, of Polito Wood Fire Ovens in

Melbourne, which sells high-end indoor and outdoor woodfired ovens to a rapidly expanding customer base. “My father makes chicken wings; he just sits them in a tray and they quickly sear without losing their juices. Seven to nine minutes and they’re done, without any drying out.”

There’s nothing like a woodfired oven for fish, says Stanaway. “We season salmon cutlets then roast them in it,” he says.

“250 to 300 degrees gives it the most beautiful caramelisation.”

Setting up a backyard pizza parlour is not without its challenges. For a start, woodfired ovens are heavy and bulky.

The most practical options come in pre-cut pieces that can be assembled at home. An entirely pre-fabricated version will likely need to be delivered and installed by forklift or crane.

Hardcore enthusiasts, however, insist that the best pizza ovens are built with bare hands from rustic materials, something that Guilford believes will impart a sense of earthy honesty. He sells a kit that allows customers to make their own oven from the basic elements of bricks and mortar, rather than pre-cut pieces. A handful of such kits were sold in his company’s first year, in 2011. This year he forecasts sales of more than 400 kits as far afield as the US. “There’s this need for authenticity,” he says. “An oven that takes a while to build, brick by brick, screams authenticity.”

Guilford’s kits come with bricks, the material to create an insulated slab, mortar, a flue and a stainlesssteel door, and range in price from $2,790 to $4,490. The bricks are cut to size and the kit comes with a trammel that helps backyard builders position them in the right spot. He estimates each kit takes about 60 hours to build. “If you’re scared of putting together Ikea furniture, this isn’t for you,” he says.

Once the oven is in place, it’s critical to feed it the right fuel. Stanaway uses grapevine cuttings from Rare Hare’s surrounding Willow Creek Vineyard, as well as red gum and yellow box. Lucio De Falco, owner of Sydney’s Lucio’s Pizzeria and winner of the best pizza in Australia award at the Campionato Mondiale della Pizza in 2018, also likes yellow box for its quick heat and high flames. He also adds ironbark, which burns slowly and maintains the heat inside the oven.

The perfect Neapolitan pizza needs an oven sitting at

450 degrees, De Falco says. At that temperature, it’s 90 seconds, in and out.

Before ditching the Weber altogether, bear in mind that a backyard pizza oven will stay when its owners move on. “Even the pre-cast ovens are fragile and shouldn’t really be moved,” Guilford says. The ones made from scratch should definitely stay in situ – the bricks won’t survive the dispatch and rebuild.

“Think of it as though you’re building a pool,” he says. “Enjoy it while you live with it and then see it as something that adds value to your house.”

The real appeal of a backyard pizza oven is not so much about the food but the sense of community it inspires. “Because you would never use it just to cook for yourself, a pizza oven is an inherently unselfish thing,” Guilford says. “It’s about friends and family, and bringing people together to gather, talk, eat and share.”