The Ooni koda 2 was easy to use from the get-go. It was super simple to set up – the legs simply extend, you slot in the pizza stone, attach the gas and you’re ready to cook. There’s nothing to assemble, which is really refreshing. It also looks the part, with a clean, minimal look and manages to stay lightweight without feeling flimsy.
Cooking performance was just as impressive, too. It reaches 500C in around 15-20 minutes, which gives enough time to stretch out your dough and get your toppings ready, but isn’t so long you’re hanging around. It has an internal temperature gauge too, so you’ll know when your pizza is ready to go.
Pizza cooked in just under two minutes and came out, time after time, absolutely perfect, with a good leopard-spot crust and hot, bubbly cheese. The base cooked all the way through, with no cold or doughy spots. Heat retention was also impressive – the oven got back up to temperature quickly in-between cooking, making it easier to cook multiple pizzas in a row without waiting ages in between.
One thing to note is that the koda 2 doesn’t have a door and the heat source sits at the back of the oven, so you’ll need to regularly rotate the pizza or you’ll risk burning just one side. The rotation needs to be done often, and I found the sweet spot was rotating it at 30-second intervals. But to be honest, you can keep an eye on it and when it’s starting to look a little crisp, just turn it around.
While the cooking area is listed at being 14in, anything above 12in gets too close to the back wall, which means burnt spots, even if you do rotate. Even so, 12in pizzas are a pretty decent size and thanks to the oven’s excellent heat retention, it’s not a big deal to just cook another if you want more.
Cleaning the oven was simple as the stone was easy to get in and out, so it was just a case of leaving it to cool down fully and then brushing off any excess burnt on flour.
The Ooni koda 2 certainly earns its place on my list of the top pizza ovens. It’s refreshingly simple to set up, easy to use and consistently turns out well-cooked pizzas with crisp bases and perfectly blistered crusts. If you want a compact gas pizza oven that delivers reliable results, then this is an excellent choice, particularly for beginner pizza makers or anyone short on outdoor space.
Key specifications
- Fuel type: Gas
- Outdoor or indoor: Outdoor
- Dimensions: 54.5cm x 47.2cm x 33.3cm
- Weight: 16kg
- Maximum temperature: 500C
- Pizza size: 14in (12in or less will avoid burnt spots)
