Gozney Arc XL Pizza Oven Reviewed and Rated

This mid-price, compact, gas-powered pizza oven gets wicked hot and accommodates a 16-inch pizza and more.

In 2021, Gozney lit the outdoor oven world on fire with the Dome, the dual-fuel Rolls Royce of pizza ovens. I loved it (read the review here), as it’s much more versatile than the company’s lower-priced Roccbox. Earlier this year, Gozney staked out the middle ground with its newest oven, the Arc, an outdoor gas-powered hot box that’s bigger than the Roccbox but smaller and more wallet-friendly than the Dome. The real innovation? An extra-wide gas burner that throws more flame across the top of the oven, hence the name, Arc. And the pizza stone is replaceable, a nice touch.

Construction

I was lucky to test drive the bigger Arc XL, which has a 16-inch pizza stone. Its sibling, the Arc, has a 14-inch stone. Both ovens look like—and are constructed like—the larger Gozney Dome, but instead of an upright flue sticking out the top, the Arc exhaust is a simple, built-in vent near the oven’s mouth. Both Arc and Arc XL are sold in the standard color, Core (bone white), and Arc XL is also available in Black (matte black) as well as seasonal colors like Sunset (blue teal) and Sunrise (terracotta). Here are key specs for Arc XL: 

• 16-inch, 3/4-inch thick replaceable cordierite pizza stone
• 340 square inches of cooking space (the smaller Arc has 263 square inches)
• Dense, 2-layer insulation for heat retention
• Lateral propane burner
• Achieves 950°F stone temps
• 58.5 pounds with cutout “handles” for 2-person portability
• Includes built-in digital temperature gauge
• Includes hand-held infrared thermometer
• Stand and other accessories sold separately
• $899 MSRP price ($699 for ARC)

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Like the Dome, Arc is built with ceramic-coated steel that’s water resistant and UV stable. It’s designed to be used outside year round on an outdoor countertop, with an optional Booster (raising it up 7 inches for easier pizza work), or with an optional rolling stand. I tested Arc XL with the stand, which has two foldaway side tables and hooks for holding pizza peels, trays, oven mitts, tongs and such. Very handy if you don’t have much outdoor counter space. 

Of course, if you already have a pizza table in place, you can just plunk Arc or Arc XL on it, attach your propane tank, and start cooking. The oven is pretty much ready to go out of the box. A built-in digital thermometer reads out the stone temperature, and Gozney throws in a hand-hand infrared thermometer for free. Firing up is similar to a gas grill. Push in the temp knob, give it a quarter turn, and when the igniter clicks and propane lights, continue turning to your preferred flame size and cook temp. 

After testing a bunch of pizza ovens over the years, there’s clearly one common pitfall: a lack of top heat. Several manufacturers claim 900°F temps, which may be true, but if the heat is concentrated on the stone and escaping out the top of the oven, the pizza won’t cook evenly, resulting in burnt bottoms and underdone toppings. The bottom line is that even heating—top, bottom and sides—is what makes a great oven. Gozney knows it. Like their other pizza ovens, Arc is well-insulated with thick ceramic fiber in the dome and calcium silicate below the pizza stone. The insulation helps Arc achieve high temps, retain heat well, cook food evenly, recover heat quickly, and reduce fuel usage. 

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Arc XL was built to accommodate a 16-inch pizza, such as New York-style. The pizza stone itself measures 16.7 inches wide by 20.3 inches deep for 338.5 square inches of total cooking space (the smaller Arc has a 14.7 x 18.2-inch stone and 263 square inches of space). With those generous dimensions, Arc XL can fit more than a New York-style pizza. You can stick a 12-inch cast-iron pan in there or a half-sheet pan (13 x 18 inches), making it much more than a pizza oven. I was looking forward to making a big NY-style pizza in this bad boy, as well as searing steaks, roasting vegetables, and more.

Cook Tests

After an initial 1-hour cure, I let Arc XL cool down completely. The next day, I tested the oven’s preheat time, firing it up to high from the get-go. After 10 minutes, my infrared thermometer gun read 675°F when pointed at the center of the pizza stone, and the built-in temp display read 513°F. That temp difference makes sense given that the built-in temp probe is located beneath the 3/4-inch-thick stone, while the IR gun measures the top of the stone, closer to the heat source. I let the oven preheat another 10 minutes, by which time the IR gun read 840°F and the built-in 775°F, only a 65°F difference. After 20 minutes, the oven temp was starting to stabilize. 

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I let it go another 10 minutes to help saturate the stone with more heat, and then launched a simple Margherita pizza. Not bad for a 1^st try with only 30 minutes of preheat time.

It took me 7 minutes to enjoy the pizza with my family, and then shape and top another, a white pizza with ricotta, mozzarella, basil, zucchini, mushrooms, and bacon. I got very similar results with this 2^nd pizza, although by this time, the oven was a bit hotter—875°F on both the IR gun and the built-in display. The oven had completely stabilized.

Pizza three was my Magdalena, a pesto, Gorgonzola and pine nut combo topped with some fantastic Italian piennolo tomatoes I picked up at a local market. For all three pies, I used the same cooking method I used on the Gozney Dome: preheat the oven on high, drop it to low during the cook, and then return it to high between pizzas. It worked great. 

During a later cook sesh, I made a few more Neapolitan-style pies this way, and they all turned out as expected, despite my own gaffe with Gozney’s IR gun. Here’s what happened: Arc’s built-in digital thermometer has an automatic 30-minute shutoff to prolong battery life, so it had turned off after 30 minutes of preheating. Yes, you can just turn the temp display back on after 30 minutes, but I wanted to test Gozney’s IR gun, so I left it off. The Gozney gun read 450°, which seemed awfully low for a 30-minute preheat. So I let the oven preheat another 10 minutes, by which time the Gozney gun was at 507°F, still too low, but I got impatient and launched the pizza anyway. While it was baking, I turned the built-in thermometer back on. It read 945°F! After a closer look at the Gozney gun, I realized it had come preset to Celsius instead of Fahrenheit. Duh! Well, that Margherita pizza burned a bit. Lesson learned: I changed the Celsius to Fahrenheit!

A few days later, my next pizza test was a hail mary. I had an extra dough ball that had been sitting in the fridge for four days and it needed to get baked, and I needed lunch, so I made a sausage pizza on the fly, start to finish, in just 15 minutes. This is NOT something I recommend. But it was either that or trash the dough and have tuna salad for lunch. I went for the pizza!

I quickly tempered the cold dough by laying it in a bowl of hot water (the dough was sealed in a ziplock bag). Then I went out and fired up the Arc on high. Back in the kitchen, I gathered my sauce, cheese, and sausage, then retrieved the dough. It was slack and sticky (remember, this dough was on the brink of death!). But it kept a round-ish shape, and I re-rounded it on a small pile of flour on the kitchen counter. After quickly pressing out and topping it, I took it out to the oven. At this point, the oven had been preheating on high for maybe 10 to 12 minutes. The stone registered 513°F on my IR gun. That’s too low, but I didn’t care. I was hungry! I launched the pie, dropped the temp knob to low and watched. The rim started bubbling up near the gas burner, so I spun the pizza periodically, moving it to different parts of the stone for fresh heat, until the rim was evenly bubbled all around.

After a couple minutes, the rim and sausage looked good but the underside was pale (the stone just wasn’t hot enough). I turned off the oven, moved the pie to a new spot near the back, and let it sit there with the oven off to help cook the bottom. The total cooking time was about 4 minutes, with the sitting. Then I ate it. As you can see, the crust was a bit flat and lifeless. The underside wasn’t as crisp as I like, but it tasted fine, especially for an on-the-fly pizza for lunch, start to finish, in just 15 minutes. I made a mental note to shorten the preheat time on the next cook by installing the ventilated door made by my crazy-handy friend, Brad Ford. This steel door was made to fit the Gozney Dome, and it just fits on the Arc XL. I was guessing it would shorten preheat time by at least 25%.

The following week, I was craving Detroit-style pizza. The door test would have to wait. Detroit pizza bakes best between 550° and 700°F, so I fired up the Arc XL on medium-low and let it preheat for an hour while the dough finished proofing. I wanted to make sure the pizza stone was fully saturated with heat to make a super-crisp bottom crust but keep the heat moderate overall so the pizza wouldn’t burn. One of my favorite doughs for Detroit-style is from Down North Pizza, a Philadelphia shop that’s exclusively owned and operated by formerly incarcerated people. (Full disclosure: I ghostwrote their cookbook, We The Pizza.) This crust comes out crispy on the bottom and sides, and light and fluffy inside: Plus, it’s ready in under 2 hours start-to-finish and doesn’t require kneading, making it the perfect pizza dough for lazy cooks. When the Arc’s stone had reached 700°F, I pressed out the dough in the pan and parbaked it in the oven for about 4 minutes, turning it every minute for even baking. Then I let it cool a bit, topped it with ungodly amounts of shredded mozzarella, sharp white cheddar, and aged provolone cheese, and scattered on some fresh sweet corn from the farm stand down the street and some shredded zucchini from my garden.

When the pizza was done, I drizzled it with roasted garlic oil and scattered on a few fresh basil leaves and some shredded Pecorino. What a combo! It was so good, I made it again and again on different pizzas throughout the summer.

Now that I’d gotten used to cooking in Arc XL, it was time for the big kahuna, a 16-inch New York-style thin-crust pepperoni pizza. I used Peter Reinhart’s dough and mixed it up the day before pizza day. The next morning, I balled it up for two 16-inch pizzas. Then I realized I didn’t have a pizza peel big enough to launch the pies! I ran out to the shed, grabbed some 1/4-inch plywood, a circular saw, and a sander. It was kinda funny using power tools while drinking my morning coffee and wearing pajamas and slides. Plus, it happened to be my birthday! I quickly measured a 16-inch square and cut the plywood with a makeshift handle. Before sanding it smooth, I stuck it in the Arc XL to test the size. It didn’t fit! That’s because the Arc’s stone isn’t square in the back. It’s rounded. A quick buzz with the jigsaw rounded off the corners and with a little sanding, I was off to the races.  

NY-style pizza bakes best between 600° and 700°F. Even though that’s not volcano hot, I was getting impatient, so I tried out the oven door (which Gozney does NOT sell or recommend, by the way). With the door in place, I cranked Arc XL to high, and in 15 minutes, the stone read 710°F. Nice! When I launched the pizza, it became clear that rotating a 16-inch circle of dough on a stone that’s 16.7 inches wide would be a bit fiddly. I had to pull it all the way out, rotate it on the peel, then put it back in. A 15-inch pie would have been easier to handle. Notes for the next pie. Nonetheless, this pizza came out great with a crispy on bottom crust (just slightly overdone) and a good, satisfying chew.   

After all these pizzas, I tested a few other things in Arc XL. In late June, we had a heat wave, and one Saturday it was 93°F with 80% humidity. My blues band had played the outdoor Allentown Blues, Brews and Barbecue festival during happy hour that day, and I was too cooked to cook! My wife suggested fajitas. Brilliant! I fired up Arc XL with a Stargazer cast-iron pan inside. In the house, I quickly sliced some red bell and jalapeño peppers and onions, and seasoned ’em with oil, garlic powder, ancho chile, cumin, oregano, smoked black pepper, and smoked paprika. Ditto for strips of chicken. I cut some lime wedges, chopped a little cilantro, and gathered flour tortillas and tomatillo salsa (we had a bumper crop of tomatillos this year, so I had plenty of salsa verde in the fridge). About 10 minutes later when I came back to the oven, the pan read 489°F on my IR gun. Perfect. I pulled it out (yes, with gloves), dumped in the chicken, and seared it for 3 minutes. The seared chicken went into a metal bowl that I set on top of Arc XL to keep it warm. The sliced veg went into the hot pan, and when those were seared, they went into another bowl. 

To heat the fajita wrappers, I turned off the oven, frisbee’d the tortillas into the oven and let them bubble up a bit. Boom—dinner was served! It tasted fantastic. Bonus points to the Arc XL for heating up quickly and handling more than just pizza. When it’s too hot to cook inside, it is soooo nice to have an outdoor oven. 

I used Arc XL all summer long, searing ribeye steaks and pork rib chops in cast-iron, roasting fish in sheet pans, and roasting vegetables fresh from our garden. I was testing recipes for chef Marc Vetri’s next pasta cookbook, so I also made eggplant “lasagnettas” in there. A sheet pan sticks out the mouth of the oven a bit, but frequent rotating kept the eggplant cooking evenly. With fresh tomato sauce, creamy ricotta, gooey mozzarella, savory Parmesan, and fresh egg yolk pasta sheets, the lasagna came out awesome. Once assembled, these very simple individual eggplant lasagnas cooked in about 12 minutes. Everything in the Arc cooks quickly because it’s designed to maintain consistently high heat. 

Conclusion

If there’s one small downside to this oven, it’s that it’s so well-built for high heat that you can’t cook low and slow. The lowest temp I could maintain on Arc XL was about 500°F. That’s fine with me. I have other cookers for low and slow. I love that you can get Arc XL’s stone to about 800°F in just 30 minutes (or less with a ventilated door). After an hour, it hits 950°F and above, which is plenty hot for anything you want to blister — from Neapolitan pizza to skirt steaks. I also like Arc’s lateral side burner: It throws a wide flame over the top of the food for more even cooking. Just keep in mind that, like most outdoor ovens, the front of Arc XL is cooler than the back, partly because the oven has a big mouth, extending all the way to the left and right oven walls (the mouth is 16.7 inches wide). No matter what you throw in there, frequent rotating is key for even cooking.

I was hoping to bake some bread in this oven, but at just 3 inches tall, the oven mouth is too shallow for my standard sourdough loaf. Sheet pan focaccia works fine. Small baguettes or ciabatta will probably work, too, but I haven’t tried those yet. 

Another upside to a well-insulated pizza oven: Quick heat recovery. In my tests, with an average starting and target temp of 800°F, Arc XL’s recovery time between pizzas was about 2 1/2 minutes. If you’re throwing a pizza party, that helps you crank out more food to feed more people in less time. The replaceable pizza stone is a nice plus, although I hope I never have to deal with that. 

A couple of nits to pick: There’s no natural gas option. I’m planning to run a natural gas line for my backyard gas cookers, but Arc XL will have to remain on the propane tanks. Oh well. I’m also not a fan of the 30-minute auto-shutoff on the built-in temp display. That said, I do appreciate the temp gauge itself: It tells you when the stone has been saturated with heat through to the bottom (where the temp probe is located) instead of just measuring the top heat of the stone like an IR gun, or measuring the temp at the upper back of the oven like the Gozney Dome. That probe placement gives you a more accurate measurement of stone temperature. 

I appreciate that Arc XL is easy to assemble, too. It comes pretty much ready to go out of the box, and Gozney has some handy videos for setup, curing, and cleaning the unit. 

Price-wise, at $899, Arc XL sits squarely in the middle of the pack. It performs better than some other ovens in its price range and is much cheaper than the company’s dual-fuel Dome ($1,999) and its gas-only Dome S1 ($1,499). If you’re in the market for a well-built, good-looking, plug-and-play outdoor pizza oven that can also roast, sear, and bake a whole lot more than pizza, you could hardly do better than the Arc XL. A well-deserved Platinum medal.

We thank Gozney for providing an Arc XL Pizza Oven for our tests.

Warranty

5 years with registration (1 year without), covering materials and workmanship, including repair or replacement of faulty components or the entire unit.