This pizza oven goes to 11. At least it says it does. A mere 20 minutes or so after firing up the new All-Clad Gas Pizza Oven—the beloved pot-and-pan brand’s first real foray into outdoor cooking—the oven's temperature gauge has gone deep into uncharted territory.

The dial’s markings top out at around 900 degrees Fahrenheit, but the thermometer’s needle is somewhere in no man’s land, well above what might register as a thousand if its thermometer weren’t busy shrugging. My infrared temperature gun seems inclined to agree, depending where I point it inside the oven, though the surface of the All-Clad’s thick 16-inch pizza stone is still hanging manageably below 900 degrees.

Consider this an announcement: All-Clad did not come to play.

The propane-powered, 16-inch All-Clad is a powerful new entrant in the still young world of accessible backyard pizza ovens, a landscape whose first decade was mostly a scorched-wood duel between the English and the Scots—Gozney and Ooni, respectively. (See WIRED's guide to the best pizza ovens.)

All-Clad is making a case that new ideas are still out there. The oven’s big sell, aside from its gaping 16-inch maw, is a rotating pizza stone that’s meant to take a lot of the fuss out of cooking pizza evenly. (The All-Clad isn’t alone. The lower-cost Versa 16 from Halo, which I’m currently testing, also offers a rotating stone.)

In the process, the All-Clad places itself as a genuine contender among top pizza ovens. Once I cooled the oven back down to more reasonable temperatures, I have used this All-Clad to make pies both neo-Neapolitan and New York, baked pies from fresh and frozen alike, seared a handsome ribeye steak, and cooked veggies that ranged from charred to even more charred.

Spin Me Right Round

I’ll get into the specs later. But first, I want to talk about the oven’s most salient feature: that rotating pizza stone. Is it really as exciting as all that? In short, yes. Yes, it is. It’s likely to be especially attractive to first-time pizza makers, and those who turn out a lot of pies rapidly.

Most pizza ovens heat from a single primary source. And so pizza brands like Ooni have devoted considerable effort to modeling the interior domed shape of their ovens. With propane models that heat from a rim of fire in the back, the idea is to entice flames to lick up and over the dome, creating even heat around the oven, thus heating the stone evenly.

But in practice, there will always be an unavoidable temperature gradient, even as you turn the flames down to cook your pizza. And so when baking a pizza in most backyard ovens, a turning peel will end up being your closest friend. On a Neapolitan-style pie cooking at above 800 degrees Fahrenheit, you might turn a pie four times in the 90 seconds or so your pizza takes to bake fully, reaching into and out of the oven with your long pizza spatula.

It is a process that requires constant attention, maybe even love. For many home pizza cooks, the act of meticulously monitoring and turning their pie to ensure an even bake is a lot of the art and fun of making pizza. But let’s say you’d rather just stick the pizza in the oven, then pull it out when it’s done? That’s what the lazy Susan in this All-Clad is for.

Press the button (its motor is powered by four AA batteries) and the pizza stone will rotate at the leisurely pace of one revolution every 40 seconds or so. If you start this rotation while the oven is preheating, the stone will also heat up beautifully evenly across its surface.

And so when you lay your pizza down to bake, instead of poking and turning and guessing, you can simply watch the browning happen—and pull your pie at the right moment. The right moment, in my experience, is gauged by watching the leading edge of your crust as it spins your way from the hot rear of the oven.

If that leading visible edge is perfect, that’s the moment to locate the included pizza peel. By the time you actually pull your pizza, 10 or 15 seconds later, this perfection will likely have spread across the entire rim of your pizza.

God bless: It’s a feature I was truly grateful for. An extra motor is also probably an added failure point, I’ll grant—a worry somewhat assuaged by the All-Clad’s two-year warranty.

Aesthetics and Specs

Aside from this elegant spin and its capacious diameter allowing for 16-inch pizzas, the All-Clad will probably remind you of a lot of other high-end propane pizza ovens on the market. The pewter-black, stainless steel oven is handsomely minimalist, if a bit boxy compared to dome-ier competitors—with a prominent All-Clad badge in the front and handy fold-up legs for less bulky storage.

It’s priced for luxury, originally listed at a hefty $1,300. But in practice, the All-Clad has been discounted by as much as $500, bringing it in line with other high-end competitors like the 18-inch Ooni Koda 2 Pro.

Assembly is nearly nil: About 50 percent of putting the thing together is just untucking the four legs that serve as its stand. Otherwise, one must simply add a couple buffer stones and center the hefty 16-inch cordierite stone atop its metal perch. Attach a propane tank, press down on the dial to trigger the igniter, and run the oven through a heating cycle to get rid of whatever factory dust remains.

Temperature is controlled by a simple dial that controls the amplitude of the gas jets at the rear of the oven: In practice, it might take you a couple tries to arrive at the target temperature, but operation is pretty intuitive.

The oven is neither too heavy nor overly light, about 46 pounds, if you plan on carting it into and out of storage. But for that, it’s pretty well insulated. When the oven has topped 1,000, the top and sides of the device might crest 200 degrees Fahrenheit, but the bottom remains quite cool—meaning you don’t have to worry it’ll scorch whatever it’s perched on.

And as mentioned, the All-Clad heats up quickly. It’s about 10 minutes to reach 600 degrees Fahrenheit, and five more to get up to 900. Heating the stone may take a little longer, but there’s blessedly little lag between thinking about pizza and making a pizza.

The Fine Print

But every virtue can also be a flaw. The high power and fast heat-up on this All-Clad can mean it’s easy to overshoot your target if you blast the thing on high—which then means you’ll need to wait a bit to cool it back down. I’ve found it’s better to heat the thing up at two-thirds intensity, rather than risk going way over the top.

Dialing in the right temp is more difficult for lower-temperature pizzas like New York or thin-crust pies that might be cooked below 700 degrees. This oven loves to be hot, and so “lower” temperatures like a mere 650 degrees do require some fine-tuning. Note also that the built-in thermometer seems a more accurate gauge for the top of the oven than the bottom. Don’t throw away your infrared thermometer, which you’ll still need to monitor the surface temperature of your pizza stone.

Now, does too much power amount to a damning flaw, especially if you’re a lover of the two-minute Neapolitan? No, it does not. It’s a bit like a job-seeker declaring that they’re “too much of a perfectionist.”

There are also a couple caveats with the rotating stone. One is a matter of basic physics. A rotating pizza stone only leads to even heat around the pizza if you land your pie successfully in the middle of the stone. Land your pizza wrong, and you’ll still have to adjust it to re-center it. (Note you’ll need to wait to do this until your dough cooks enough on the bottom that you can actually lift it.)

Mostly this has not been a problem. But mistakes happen, and rotating stones aren’t a foolproof recipe for even cooks. At least once, I mounted the stone just a little askew and didn’t notice until I had already heated up the oven—and this was just enough to offer friction while it turned, causing rotation to stall with my pizza on top. A preventable, but possible, user error.

These are small complaints when lined up against the convenience of not having to futz with a turning peel. And with that rotating stone, All-Clad may have managed to carve out a new niche in backyard pizza—or at least, a new feature to catch up to.