As a restaurant chef with over 10 years of experience running my own kitchen at Dequte Restaurant LironBoylston, I’ve had the chance to test a wide range of pizza ovens in real kitchen conditions. In this article, I’ll be comparing the Camp Chef Italia and the Cru Champion — two ovens I’ve personally used extensively in my kitchen.
I’ve evaluated them based on key criteria: quality and materials, temperature control, shape, first-time usage impressions, power source, size, ease of cleaning, and finally, a real-world pizza cooking test to see how long each one takes and how well it performs. If you’re curious about the full step-by-step process I use to test pizza ovens, I’ve outlined that in a separate detailed article.
The Camp Chef Italia is a propane-powered pizza oven that’s known for its double-layer ceiling, consistent heat, and brick-oven-like performance — all in a compact, outdoor-friendly form.
The Cru Champion, on the other hand, is a high-end wood-fired oven crafted in Portugal, built for large-scale cooking with serious heat retention and a spacious interior that supports multiple dishes at once.
This article features a thorough comparison between the Camp Chef Italia and the Cru Champion based on my personal tests.
Just a quick note: I do use referral links in this article, which help tremendously in keeping this blog alive. If you choose to purchase through one of my links, I’ll earn a small commission — at no extra cost to you — and I truly appreciate your support.
Camp Chef Italia VS Cru Champion: Quality and Materials
| The Camp Chef Italia is built from stainless steel with a double-layered ceiling that helps mimic the dynamics of a traditional brick oven. While the metal feels thinner compared to premium models, the construction is stable and reliable for consistent performance. |
The Cru Champion is crafted using insulated dual-walled AISI 304 stainless steel, paired with ceramic bricks for excellent heat retention. Its build feels premium and long-lasting, though the chimney showed signs of wear after regular use.
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Camp Chef Italia VS Cru Champion: Temperature Control
| The Camp Chef Italia Pizza Oven features micro-adjust valves that offer precise temperature control. While it takes longer to heat—about 40 minutes to hit 700°F—it maintains steady heat once ready, allowing you to bake pizzas without much fluctuation. |
The Cru Champion Oven excels in heat retention. It preheats in about 12–13 minutes and holds heat around 850°F with minimal adjustment. It’s ideal for fast pizza cooking and offers a true wood-fired experience.
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Camp Chef Italia VS Cru Champion: Shape
| The rounded dome shape of the Camp Chef Italia Artisan Pizza Oven helps circulate heat evenly across the baking stone. It’s compact yet efficient, and its smooth top gives it a classic pizzeria feel. |
The Cru Champion features a semi-circular dome with a layered internal design that retains and reflects heat well. The generous space inside gives it a more industrial or traditional wood-fired oven look.
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Camp Chef Italia VS Cru Champion: First-Time Usage Impressions
| Assembling the Camp Chef Italia was simple and took under 30 minutes. Connecting the propane and starting the burner was intuitive, making it beginner-friendly even for those new to outdoor pizza ovens. |
The Cru Champion Oven arrived mostly pre-assembled. Setup was quick (about 10 minutes), but due to its large size and weight, a second person was needed to move it safely into place.
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Camp Chef Italia VS Cru Champion: Power Source
| The Camp Chef Italia uses propane, which is cleaner and easier to manage than wood. While it doesn’t offer the smoky flavor of traditional ovens, the gas setup allows for hassle-free use and quick cleanup. |
The Cru Champion runs on wood or charcoal, delivering authentic, smoky flavor. This gives it a culinary edge in taste, but managing the fire and ash does require more involvement and cleanup time.
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Camp Chef Italia VS Cru Champion: Size
| With a compact design, the Camp Chef Italia Pizza Oven is ideal for small patios. It fits 12-inch pizzas comfortably but may feel tight when turning larger pies due to its lower ceiling. |
The Cru Champion Oven has a generous 24” x 24” cooking surface. It easily fits an 18-inch pizza or two 10-inch pizzas side-by-side, making it better for feeding groups—but it’s not very portable.
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Camp Chef Italia VS Cru Champion: Ease of Cleaning
| Cleaning the Camp Chef Italia is quick—just let it run for 15 minutes to burn off food bits, then scrape and wipe it down. Its ceramic stone cools evenly and can be reused without much maintenance. |
The Cru Champion requires brushing out ash and wiping down the dome once cool. While not difficult, cleaning the wood and brick surfaces takes more time than gas ovens like the Camp Chef Italia.
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Pizza Cooking Test
When it came time to put both ovens to the real test—making a classic Margherita pizza—I tracked preheating times, bake durations, and, of course, taste.
Camp Chef Italia took about 40 minutes to preheat to around 700°F, which was slower than expected but within reason for a gas-powered model. Once heated, it cooked my Margherita pizza in approximately 9 minutes. The crust turned out evenly golden, crisp on the bottom with a soft, chewy interior. While it lacked the smoky notes of a wood-fired oven, the balance of flavors and texture was still impressive—especially considering the simplicity and cleanliness of a gas setup.
Cru Champion, on the other hand, heated up much faster. Using wood, it reached 850°F in just under 13 minutes. The Margherita pizza baked incredibly fast—only 96 seconds—with blistered leoparding on the crust and a soft, airy center. The flavor was distinctly wood-fired, rich, and aromatic. However, the quick cook time meant I had to be very attentive during baking to avoid burning the pizza edges.
In short: Camp Chef Italia gave me a more relaxed, controlled experience with delicious results, while the Cru Champion delivered speed and smoky depth but required more effort and timing precision.
How We Tested
As a restaurant chef with over 10 years of hands-on experience at Dequte Restaurant LironBoylston, I approached this comparison with the same precision I use in my kitchen every day. I personally used both the Camp Chef Italia and the Cru Champion ovens multiple times, focusing on the factors that matter most in real cooking conditions.
For each oven, I evaluated build quality, material durability, heat retention, and temperature control in actual use—not just based on specs. I assembled both models myself, noting how easy or complicated setup was for a solo user. I also compared the shapes of the domes and cooking chambers, since airflow plays a huge role in pizza crust texture and consistency.
I paid special attention to the power source differences—propane in the Camp Chef Italia vs. wood/charcoal in the Cru Champion—and how they affected both convenience and flavor. I measured preheating times with an infrared thermometer and cooked Margherita pizzas side-by-side using the same dough and ingredients to keep it fair.
Each pizza was judged on baking time, crust quality, cook consistency, and flavor, with additional notes on ease of cleaning and how well each oven fit into a busy cooking routine.
If you’re curious about the full testing protocol I follow when reviewing pizza ovens, you can check out my separate article where I break it down step-by-step.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, choosing between the Camp Chef Italia and the Cru Champion really comes down to your cooking style, space, and budget. Both ovens have their strengths and can make fantastic pizza, but in my experience as a chef, the Camp Chef Italia slightly edges ahead in terms of ease of use, reliability, and overall value.
Whichever oven you go with, I genuinely hope it brings you as much joy as it brought me during testing. If you found this comparison helpful and plan to purchase one of these ovens, I’d really appreciate it if you used my referral links below. It won’t cost you anything extra, but it helps support my blog and future reviews:
Take a look at the top pizza ovens available today.