Pizza with fire power

If you visit a pizzeria in France or Italy there is a good chance your pizza will be baked in a wood-burning oven.

Although British high streets are becoming increasingly crowded with pizza outlets, few caterers have realised that traditional wood-fired baking is a good way of gaining a competitive edge.

In the USA, where the pizza market is even more saturated, operators are busy exploiting this opportunity. One franchised chain, The Italian Oven, is hoping to have 400 restaurants open within four years.

A wood-burning oven has been a visible feature of the Sol e Luna restaurant in London's Covent Garden since it opened three years ago. Partner Bruce Isaacs sees such ovens as part of a growing trend which uses ethnic ingredients, recipes and cooking methods.

The oven comprises an igloo-shaped, insulated casing behind a decorative ceramic front. The wood burns on the firebrick hearth. Isaacs agrees that the oven is far more demanding than a conventional oven. "The heat is fiercer and less even, so staff really have to know their oven. Even then, the location of hot spots can vary depending on how the logs are placed," he explains.

It is also hot work for the two skilled pizzaolas who operate the oven. While pizza baking is left to regular crew members at many chain pizza restaurants, the Sol e Luna insists on prior pizza-making experience, preferably in Italy, and pays above standard rates. "If a chef leaves, we have a battle on our hands to replace him," Isaacs says.

What is so special about wood-burning? "There is definitely a different taste to it. It is not just to do with the smokiness but also the high temperatures," he says.

The Sol e Luna's wood-burning oven reaches 800ºF (50º-100ºF hotter than a normal gas-fired deck oven) and is able to cook a full-size pizza in 2-3 minutes. It was made in Italy by Caminetti Montegrappa and installed by CB Appliances.

The installation had plenty of teething troubles, mostly associated with the run of the extraction flue. But the chain has enough faith in the concept to be using a similar type of oven in its next restaurant, the Sol e Stella, which opens in Blandford Street, London W1, this month.

Installation procedures

Isaacs cautions that installation requires detailed negotiations with the local authority surveyor, environmental health officers and fire officers. One key stipulation, bearing in mind that pizzas are a combustible substance, is that the oven can be closed immediately should problems occur. A glazed fire door is fitted in case there is a "blow-out". The flue is also, he emphasises, "seriously insulated" for heat and fire; it is a flue within a flue, with Rockwall lining in between.

Isaacs puts the total cost of installation at about £12,000-£15,000. But that depends, he says, on the route of the flue and whether the building has a natural chimney through which oven emissions can be vented.

This was a real challenge for Harrods department store in London's Knightsbridge. In April this year it added an open-plan 40-seat pizzeria to the numerous themed foodservice outlets ranged around its famous ground-floor food hall.

A prestigious establishment such as Harrods had no difficulty recruiting highly experienced pizzaola Carmine Annunziata to run the outlet. With two Italian pizza chefs, he has no problem loading the two wood-burning ovens. The menu offers a choice of 14 pizzas, including the Harrods Pizza with a topping of poached and smoked salmon.

But the need to vent the ovens through six floors to the roof was a big factor in the lengthy 12-week installation of the new restaurant. The ovens - built in-situ from an Earthstone kit produced by French manufacturer Ephrem - also took time to "bed in". Annunziata says it was necessary to run the oven for a week to make sure the cement was completely dry.

UK supplier the Pizza Centre says the kits can be built to a number of formats with the help of any local builder who has concrete blockwork experience. The exterior shell can then be covered with decorative surfaces. Prices start at £4,500 per oven, excluding extraction.

Choosing an oven

Trevor Davies, owner of the Market Café in London's Covent Garden, chose a wood-burning oven when he decided to add pizza to the restaurant's long-established cràpe menu two years ago. But he had limited front-of-house space at the unit, which with indoor and outdoor seating areas on Covent Garden's central piazza serves more than 250 covers.

One immediate concern was the amount of space needed for wood storage. Other difficulties involved ventilation and the need for specialist staff.

Getting information about wood-burning ovens proved frustrating. Enquiries to 11 Italian manufacturers located through the Italian chamber of commerce elicited only one response. Eventually he opted for a US oven which looked like a traditional wood oven but was heated, both underneath its stone deck and within the baking chamber, by gas.

The Italian-style oven he chose - an Il Forno Classico from Bakers Pride - gives the suggestion of intense heat inside the oven deck, thanks to an open flame gas burner. Main heating is provided by gas burners under the firebrick hearth. "It is the same effect as a wood-burning oven but a lot easier to operate," Davies said.

The rest of the oven gets as close as possible to a rustic look, with a kiln-like semi-circular mouth, arched brickwork and log-ends used decoratively in the lower section.

Martin Beesley, managing director of Bakers Pride Europe, puts the price of an Il Forno Classico at about £10,000, including installation.

Several oven suppliers can offer versions of conventionally heated gas or electric deck ovens with a styling which, externally at least, can be made to look like a traditional oven by setting it within a surround of brick, cement, ceramic or other decorative cladding. Examples of traditional-type pizza ovens in a variety of sizes include Moretti ovens (supplied through Mulmar UK), GAM ovens (Garland), Blodgett (Frialator), Monarch (Fields & Pimblett), TICC and APV Moffat.

There is also a growing choice of small deck ovens, which can obtain authentic results at smaller establishments, or where Italian-style pizza is only one aspect of the menu. Examples include the Panache two-deck firebrick oven from Lincat and the Pizza Quartz firebrick base ovens recently introduced by Rowlett Catering Appliances. Other small pizza oven suppliers include Castle Foodservice and Kedek.