Gozney Roccbox: Two-minute preview

If you’re the kind of cook that finds a sourdough pizza recipe exciting and you’re thrilled by the pursuit of the food innovation seen on shows like Chef’s Table: Pizza or The Bear, then the Gozney Roccbox is the portable pizza oven for you.

This is in part because the recipes available on Gozney’s website are more likely to lean into a mixture of traditional-style Neapolitan, white-base or experimental pizzas rather than how to whip up a ham-and-pineapple pie, but it’s also because all of the design choices are geared to making the best quality pizza on a portable device. 

At 44 pounds (20kg), the Gozney Roccbox is heavier than many of its competitors, but that extra weight is used to add insulation that works to retain heat so the oven can make a series of pizzas quickly. It’s not designed to handle larger 14-inch pizzas or make multiple pizzas at once, but it’s able to retain enough heat to cook up back-to-back 12-inch pizzas with no down time, so you can cook for large groups if you’re well prepped.

In addition to minimizing the recharge time, this added insulation keeps the cooking temperature even, allowing for more control and predictability, and it also means the outside of the oven isn’t going to scorch you if you bump it. Both of these features more than make up for the additional weight.

The Gozney Roccbox might seem more expensive than some competitors, but it actually comes with a gas attachment by default, so when you add the cost of gas attachments to other systems the Roccbox actually offers exceptionally good value. Gas is easier to control and is less work to maintain temperature, so it’s more manageable than trying to create wood-fired pizza. This makes it the best solution for people starting their pizza-making journey or for anyone hoping to take the oven on the road.

Presentation is critical to people that take their food seriously and, if all the other features weren’t enough, the Gozney range of pizza ovens and Gozney accessories are the best-looking options of anything available on the market in my opinion. The Brad Leone Limited Edition that I was sent for this review my favorite color – the more subdued grey, olive or black options will be more appealing to most people I reckon – but even this more vibrant coloring fits in nicely with the overall theme.

The Roccbox folds away into a compact package that’s easy to transport with the carry cover accessory, making it an excellent device for gourmet cooking on the go. It’s got a built-in thermometer that’ll display the temperature of the cooking stone and it’s simple gas temperature gauge is easy to master. The Roccbox has everything you need to make the perfect pizza at home or when out in the wilderness.

Gozney Roccbox review: Price and availability

• Priced at $499 / £399.00 / AU$799 
• Lots of reasonably priced accessories

The Gozney Roccbox, Brad Leone Limited Edition and Tom Gozney Signature Edition Roccboxes are all available for $499 / £399.00 / AU$799 directly from the Gozney website. The portable ovens come with a professional-grade pizza peel, detachable gas burner and a bottle opener (except on the Tom Gozney Signature Edition). This is all you really need to get going, but there are a wide range of accessories available that’ll help you make better pizza. 

Some of the essentials you might want to consider include a Turning Peel ($65 / £49 / AU$89), the Roccbox Cover ($50 / £39.99 / AU$69) and the Mantel ($59 / £59 / AU$79). These three will really help you when it comes to rotating pizzas for an even cook and allowing you to take the device with you when you travel.

If you want to up your game, then the next set of accessories that work really well are the Infrared Thermometer ($49 / £39 / AU$69) which allows you to see how hot each part of the stone is, since it can vary by approximately 212ºF / 100ºC from the front entrance to the rear. The Pizza Rocker ($39 / £35 / AU$49) is excellent for efficiently cutting pizza and the fiber board Pizza Server ($49 / £39 / AU$59) is the perfect clean and lightweight platform for displaying your creations. 

Value score: 5/5

Gozney Roccbox review: Specs

Gozney Roccbox review: Design and features

• Gas burner
• Foldable legs 
• In-built thermometer 

It’s hard to deny the consistent and appealing overall aesthetic of the Gozney brand. Of course it helps having a show stopper like the ultra-premium Dome oven in your lineup, but the brand’s understated style extends down through the Roccbox, all the way to the accessories that the company sells. But the Roccbox doesn’t just look good, the clever design extends to details that genuinely enhance the performance of the oven as well. 

The Roccbox features a detachable gas burner and foldable legs that make the package particularly compact and easy to pack away. The device is heavier than some portable pizza ovens, which might deter some users who are particularly keen on an on-the-go device, but the added weight can easily be accommodated and the added effort in moving it pays off massively in efficiency and performance. 

Unlike some other pizza ovens, the Roccbox comes with the gas burner by default – a clever design choice that will appeal to the vast majority of DIY pizza makers. If you do want to test your skills at wood-fired pizza, you can buy a Wood Burner attachment for $100 / £100 / AU$199 without needing to invest in a different design. I didn’t test Gozney’s Wood Burner functionality for this review, but controlling the temperature in wood-fired ovens is a more finicky process, so I’m working on the assumption that the added insulation will be very useful for experimenting with traditional wood-fired flavors.

The other major design feature is an in-built thermometer, meaning you can get a consistent read on when the oven is ready to go. This is a particularly handy feature if you want to travel light as it gives you a reliable gauge to cook different foods all in the one package. The added insulation combines with a silicone jacket to make the oven safe to touch when running – an important added safety feature if you’re cooking close to other people or pets that might accidentally bump the oven.

The included Pizza Peel means you have everything you need to create impressive pizzas straight out of the box.

Design score: 5/5 

Gozney Roccbox review: Performance

• 10-minute heat time
• 750º-950ºF (400º-500ºC)  cooking temperature range
• 19mm cordierite stone floor 

The oven features a 19mm cordierite stone floor that is able to hit temperatures of 750º – 950ºF (400º – 500ºC) in around 10 minutes. This temperature is more than double of what your average home oven can achieve and it allows the pizza base to cook quickly with any topping of your choice. Even with a pizza stone, the results you’ll get from a regular pizza oven are incomparable to what you’ll be able to achieve in the Roccbox.

The quick start time of the Gozney Roccbox is complimented by a generous helping of calcium silicate insulation that allows the oven to retain heat much better than any other portable pizza oven I’ve tested. As a result, the Gozney Roccbox is able to cook pizzas more evenly and, when you reduce the gas to slow any top-down cooking, the pizza stone base retains its temperature better than any other portable oven. 

This gives you better control to cook pizzas more precisely and dramatically reduces the recharge time to allow you to do make back-to-back pizzas quickly. Obviously the compact Roccbox doesn’t have the thermal mass of its bigger Dome siblings but, during my testing, the insulation was good enough to make at least two pizzas back-to-back when the stone was already at a temperature above 850ºF (450ºC). This makes it capable of cooking for groups as you can prep more pizzas and cook them all within a quicker timeframe, something that you won’t be able to do on lighter, less insulated portable pizza ovens.

This makes it uniquely competent as a home pizza oven since it’s more than capable of creating a larger volume of pizzas when entertaining, something I’ve found other portable pizza ovens weren’t great at.

Performance score: 5/5

Should I buy the Gozney Roccbox?

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How I tested the Gozney Roccbox

• Test pizzas = 12
• Used a range of Gozney accessories 

I tested the Gozney Roccbox at home over a 6-week period, trying out multiple pizza and bread recipes. This included hosting 8 people and making enough pizza for everyone all the way down to smaller lunch pizzas for one. 

I also tested all the accessories listed alongside the oven to ensure each works well and whether they add to the usability of the device. I wasn’t sent the wood-fired burner accessory to test how the Roccbox performs using a wood-based fire, so the test pizzas were made exclusively with gas. 

The Roccbox was also packed away in the cover and was moved to the car in order to ensure portability.

Gozney has a good selection of recipes on its website and comes with a small pamphlet of 6 essential recipes to get you started, each of which I followed for impressive results.  

Read more about how we test

[First reviewed November 2023]