Cuisinart Alfrescamore Review

The Cuisinart Alfrescamore is designed very much in the same vein as their portable gas grills. It is sturdy, easy-to-use, and reasonably powerful relative to its size. The Alfrescamore is powered by a single 15,000 BTU gas burner located directly underneath the 13" pizza stone. The hinged top makes it much easier, not to mention safer, for the inexperienced to load pizzas and clean both the stone and oven at the night's end. Best of all, this accessible model includes a 12" pizza peel with a foldable handle, which is designed so well that it became our go-to peel for testing all our other ovens!

Performance Comparison

Cooking Performance

The Alfrescamore is one of the few ovens included in this review that isn't advertised as a Neapolitan-style pizza oven, using high-fire temperatures for cooking pizzas in less than 90 seconds. Instead, this oven is marketed as capable of producing pizzas "in as little as 5 minutes," which is precisely what we found in our testing. This toned-down approach makes the Alfrescamore so approachable for those just firing up their first pizza oven.

This gas oven takes between five and seven minutes to get a pizza from raw to ready to slice, giving you plenty of time to move and adjust the position of the pizza in the oven to achieve your perfect pie. This oven is also unique, thanks to a hinged lid, which allows you to easily access the pizza without having to figure out how to reach into a hot oven. While this certainly makes cooking more manageable, it is essential to remember that you will release internal heat vital to cooking every time you lift the lid, which will increase reheat times between pizzas.

Output Power

After a standard preheat time of 15 minutes, this oven can reach temperatures near 575°F, but only if you operate it without lifting the lid. Otherwise, standard procedure — including lifting the top to check on the pizza status — will drop the average oven temperature closer to 480°F. We recognize that a novice may not yet want to invest in an infrared thermometer to add to their pizza-making tool lineup. Fortunately, the Alfrescamore integrates an impressively accurate thermometer to help you monitor the internal temperature.

While this is much too low to bake a Neapolitan-style pizza, the lower internal oven temperature balances nicely with a notably hotter pizza stone to still produce quality pies. A powerful, U-shaped burner is perfectly positioned in the center of the oven, which provides enough heat for the pizza stone to maintain an average temperature of 663°F. This heat distribution allows you to produce pies with a golden upper crust contrasted with a perfectly blackened bottom, along the lines of New Haven-style apizza.

Control

Oven insulation is a topic we would typically cover in the previous section. However, due to the distinctive design of the Alfrescamore, it is more appropriate to consider this factor when discussing oven control. While the oven does a nice job maintaining an internal temperature proportional to the insulation of the oven chamber, it will release that heat every time you lift the lid. It is easy to lose 100°F or more in the mere seconds it takes to load or adjust a pizza with the lid open.

Fortunately, the design of the oven chamber helps to recover this heat loss quickly — and, for that matter, helps cope with the overall lower heat output of this oven. A heat shield over the burner helps disperse heat evenly across the bottom of the pizza stone and redirects much of this heat outward and upward. The lower height of the stainless steel cover re-radiates this heat to get the oven back up to temperature within just three to five minutes. The offset internal and pizza stone temperatures also do an excellent job working to crisp the bottom crust without burning either the top or toppings.

Ease of Use

Thanks to these design specifics, the Alfrescamore is one of our favorite ovens when it comes to ease of use. Unlike other, more powerful ovens, this one can consistently produce quality pizzas without much fuss. And unlike other ovens that require you to monitor and turn a pizza constantly every 15-20 seconds to avoid burning the crust, you really only have to turn this pizza a few times to achieve the same type of consistency.

Despite its accessibility, this oven would benefit from a few simple design adjustments that could significantly improve its ease of use. Don't be fooled by the marketing photos: the top of this oven is hot, and because there is no handle, you have to wear heat gloves if you want to lift the lid. For some reason, the gas components are also fully exposed, which could easily be damaged in storage or during transport. Lastly, this is one of the larger — and heavier — ovens we tested, and its awkward design makes it more of a hassle to store.

Should You Buy the Cuisinart Alfrescamore?

Please don't let the relatively low score this oven received dissuade you. Even though it doesn't have the same capability as some of the other pizza ovens we tested, this model presents a fantastic value relative to its cooking performance. Its ease of use is approachable for novice chefs, and the price point makes it a great entry-level option. Last but not least, this kit includes a pizza peel, so you are set up right off the bat. We recommend this pizza oven to anyone who is interested in trying their hand at homemade pies but isn't ready to splurge on specialty kitchen tools.

What Other Pizza Ovens Should You Consider?