Jamie Oliver by Tefal Pizza Oven review: a top performing budget-priced pizza oven with revolving stone

Welcome to T3's review of the Jamie Oliver by Tefal Pizza Oven (JM4168G1), a simple but impressive gas-fired model with a manually-operated rotating stone for reduced scorching of pizza bases… and hands.

Yes, I am well aware that winter isn’t the best time to be firing up a pizza oven outdoors, especially when the ambient temperature is in single figures and the oven in question doesn’t have a door to keep the heat in. But, hey, anytime is pizza time in my book so I relished the challenge of getting this oven up to speed and evaluating its performance during a harsh winter month. After all, if a pizza oven can perform well in harsh winter temperatures, it’ll positively sail through everything you throw in it come summertime.

Is the Jamie Oliver by Tefal worthy of an elevated position in T3’s guide to the best pizza ovens? Let’s see.

Jamie Oliver by Tefal Pizza Oven review: price and availability

If you shop at the Tefal store and use the code JAMIEPIZZA, Tefal will lop £70 off the basket price, taking this cracking pizza oven down to a very reasonable £279.99 – about as cheap as gas-fired pizza ovens get. Alternatively, try Amazon where it’s shifting for £315.

Jamie Oliver by Tefal Pizza Oven review: design and features

Purists will always opt for wood-fired pizza making but for the rest of us propane gas does just as good a job. Also, gas is much quicker at heating the stone and it’s easier to keep it up to temperature. In this instance, you’re looking at a maximum temperature of around 400˚C which is perfectly adequate for domestic pizza baking.

This TV chef-endorsed model comes with a circular 13-inch stone replete with crescent shaped front insert for easy pizza loading, a tactile gas controller with fast-acting Piezo ignition, a 10-inch burner mounted at the rear of the oven and a free foldable pizza peel that stores away inside the oven. Crucially, this model also comes with the gas hose and UK-spec regulator already attached to the unit and that’s a big bonus in my book because fitting a regulator and hose is usually a right pain in the posterior. Furthermore, the unit itself only weighs 12.5 kilos so it’s easy enough for one person to lift. And like almost all pizza ovens on the market, it comes with four fold-out legs for table-top use. However, I think the best thing about this model is the manually-controlled rotating pizza stone which makes the essential act of turning a pizza during its bake a veritable cinch.

When Witt came out with an electronically-controlled and motorised rotating pizza stone for its Witt ETNA Rotante model, I was pretty much floored. Not necessarily by what was a very clever and undeniably useful function to help reduce burning, but by the fact that no-one had thought of it before. I saw the same idea on the Revolve pizza oven that followed a few months later and, as of writing, at least another eight manufacturers have since jumped on the rotating-stone bandwagon.

However, this model differs from much of the competition by having a cordierite pizza stone that is turned manually instead of electronically by twisting a dial positioned on the side next to the gas controller. I’ll admit that at first I thought a manually operated revolving pizza stone was just being cheapskate when it could have been equipped with a motor and battery pack like all the others.

But I was wrong because, it turns out that a manually operated mechanism is much more reliable and far more accurate than a battery-operated one. Put another way, I’ve since had the odd hiccup with the Witt when I have ill-advisedly neglected to place the pizza directly in the middle of the stone so that when it rotated, part of the pizza base headed too close to the rear flame causing some serious scorching. Since the Witt’s stone is electronically controlled, it’s not easy to stop the base in a certain spot for extra cooking.

Conversely, with this model I’ve been able to dial in a few inches of movement at a time so every part of the base gets an even bake. Hats off to whoever opted to go manual in this regard because it makes fine adjustments to the pizza’s position so much easier. And of course, having a revolving stone is also handy during the initial heating-up phase because you can ensure the whole stone is heated evenly instead of just the area nearest the rear-mounted flame. If you haven’t tried a pizza oven with a rotating stone, now’s the time to give it a go.

Jamie Oliver by Tefal Pizza Oven review: performance

Given that I tested this pizza oven on a cold UK day in December, I didn’t hold out much hope of getting the stone anywhere near the temperature required to properly bake a pizza. But against all odds – including no door on the front of the unit to keep the heat in – the Jamie Oliver Tefal reached 387˚C after about 30 minutes at full bore. Since I’ve had successful bakes at 350˚C, I threw caution to the cold wind and stuck with the plan.

I should add at this juncture that I had run out of my favourite brand of pre-made pizza dough balls – Gozney’s ready-made dough using the Peddling Pizza recipe – so had to opt for Northern Dough Co’s frozen alternative, which is usually my last resort. Nevertheless, despite the dough’s overly-dense and taut structure, the 12-inch chorizo pizza I made was surprisingly good, with a firm, crispy base and half-decent crust. I am in no doubt that had I used Gozney dough the pizza base would have looked and tasted a zillion times better.

The key takeaway here is that at no time did the oven scorch the pizza to an unsatisfactory level, and I put much of that down to the manually-controlled revolving base which allowed me to turn the pizza to exactly where I wanted it without having to faff about with a pizza peel.

Jamie Oliver by Tefal Pizza Oven review: verdict

Although I don’t think this oven is as aesthetically pleasing or as well built as the Gino D’Acampo Carbonio, it produced very similar results – and I didn’t have to wrestle with a pizza peel to turn the base. I also think this model is excellent value for money, especially if bought direct from Tefal where it’s going for as low as £279.99 with discount code.

If you’re thinking of jumping on the pizza train, I doubt you’ll find a better bargain than this model. It’s a doddle to set up, light enough to carry a short distance and you’ll come to appreciate the pizza stone turning mechanism which makes the whole process of fast pizza baking an absolute breeze, especially for beginners.