Pizza Styles for a Wood-Fired Oven
Detroit-style pizza, Michigan’s own: the cheese pushed to the pan’s edge fries into a dark, lacy frame.
Some pizzas were born in a wood-fired oven, some in a coal oven, and some in a steel pan in a Detroit bar. A home pizza oven can make most of them — but not all in the same way, and not all at full heat.
Neapolitan: the one the oven was built for
A soft, thin centre, a puffed and blistered rim, a few toppings, 60–90 seconds at a floor of 750–850 °F. The rules are on their own page.
- Margherita — tomato, mozzarella, basil, oil. The AVPN’s quantities are small: 60–80 g of tomato, 80–100 g of mozzarella, 6–7 g of oil, a few basil leaves. Ooni adds the basil after the bake: Pizza Margherita.
- Marinara — tomato, garlic, oregano, oil, no cheese. Older than the Margherita as a type: Naples in the 1850s–60s already ate garlic-and-oil pizza as its commonest kind, though then without tomato. Two tricks from Ooni’s recipe: cover the sliced garlic in oil so it doesn’t burn “acrid,” and soak the basil leaves in salted water so they don’t scorch: Pizza Marinara.
- Calzone — folded and sealed, baked cooler and longer than a pizza so the filling heats through. Gozney bakes its calzone at about 660 °F for three to four minutes, with a small hole pinched in the top to stop it ballooning: Calzone.
Mozzarella and water. Fresh mozzarella is wet, and too much of it floods the centre. The fixes are to tear it and let it drain, to use less, or to add some after the bake.
New York–style: bigger, crisper, cooler
A New York pizza is large (16–18 inches), thinner and crisper than a Neapolitan one, and made with bread flour, a little sugar and oil and low-moisture mozzarella. Traditionally it bakes at 500–650 °F in a gas deck oven. In a pizza oven Ooni’s method keeps the stone at about 750 °F, turns the flame off at launch for two minutes, then back on low, for four to five minutes in all. Because of the sugar and oil, a New York dough burns at Neapolitan heat (see the dough). A 16-inch New York pizza needs an oven that fits it — in a Karu 2 Pro, ATK measured 15 inches as the practical limit: New York-Style Pizza.
New Haven: the white clam pie
New Haven’s apizza — the name is Neapolitan dialect, ‘a pizza — is baked in coal ovens and charred hard. Frank Pepe’s opened in 1925, and its white clam pizza (clams, garlic, oregano, grated Pecorino, oil, no mozzarella, no tomato) dates, by the company’s account, from 1964. Ooni bakes a version at 700 °F for two to three minutes: New Haven White Clam Pizza.
Roman pizza bianca
“White pizza” in Rome is a long, dimpled, high-hydration flatbread with oil and salt — closer to focaccia than to a round pizza. In a pizza oven the closest thing is focaccia baked on the falling heat after the pizzas: Focaccia from Leftover Pizza Dough.
Detroit and Chicago: pan pizzas
Detroit-style pizza was born in 1946 at Buddy’s Rendezvous on Detroit’s east side: a thick, airy rectangle baked in a steel pan — originally a parts tray borrowed from the auto plants — with Wisconsin brick cheese pushed to the edges, where it fries into a dark, crisp frame, and sauce spooned on top in stripes. Chicago deep-dish (Pizzeria Uno, 1943) is baked in a tall round pan with the cheese under the sauce.
Neither is a wood-oven style; both are baked in ordinary deck ovens, and in both the pan does the work, not the oven floor. They can be made in a pizza oven or a kitchen oven. Ooni bakes its Detroit-style pizza in a pizza oven with the stone at about 650 °F, the flame turned to its lowest, and the pan at the front, away from the fire, for 10–15 minutes, turning the pan every two minutes early on. Kenji López-Alt’s home-oven version bakes at 550 °F for 12–15 minutes, with the pan on the lowest rack. His best substitute for Wisconsin brick cheese was half low-moisture mozzarella and half Jack. The collection’s version is Detroit-Style Pizza.
Which style at which heat
| Style | Stone | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Neapolitan Margherita, Marinara | 800–930 °F | 1–2 min |
| Calzone | ~660–750 °F | 3–4 min |
| New York | ~750 °F, flame low | 4–5 min |
| New Haven clam | ~700 °F | 2–3 min |
| Detroit (pan) | ~650 °F, flame lowest, pan at the front | 10–15 min |
Temperatures from the source recipes: AVPN, Ooni, Gozney.
An evening’s order
Because a wood fire is at its hottest early and falls away, the natural order is Neapolitan first, then New York and calzone as the fire is let down, then flatbreads, then anything in cast iron. That sequence continues on beyond pizza.
In this dive: The history · What makes it Neapolitan · How the oven cooks · Choosing an oven · The Ooni Karu 2 Pro · Wood and fire · Using the oven · Safety and the law · The dough · Pizza styles · Beyond pizza · Corrections
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