Ooni Karu 16 Review: Wood-Fired Pizza as Easy as Pie

Around this time every year, pizza oven madness descends upon me and my husband. It starts out with a simple, “Oh, so-and-so is coming into town? We should make pizza!” We fire up the oven and pick up some mozzarella at the store. It’s so good, so incredibly fast and easy, that next week, I make chicken thighs in the pizza oven instead of on the stovetop. Then a quick pan of wood-fired Brussels sprouts. Then a salty, bloody, perfectly seared flank steak. Suddenly, it’s noon on a workday and I’m holding a single defrosted salmon fillet from Costco. I’m looking out into the backyard and thinking, should I? Wood-fired salmon for one? No. Calm down. Get some work done.Cooking with a wood-fired pizza oven has the same intense, meditative quality as toasting marshmallows while you’re camping. With Ooni’s latest oven, it’s as easy as using gas. I can pull a few things out of my fridge at 5:30 pm and have dinner cooked by 6 pm. Every one of my friends and family who has been lucky enough to be invited over for dinner has also wanted one of these.Winner Take AllIf you have a design that really works, why change it? The Ooni Karu 16 echoes the sea turtle appearance of the company’s previous ovens. However, unlike the gleaming stainless steel of the Ooni Pro, the Karu 16 has a temperature-resistant powder-coated finish over a carbon- and stainless-steel shell.The insulation is astounding.