As a restaurant chef with over 10 years of experience at my own kitchen — Dequte Restaurant LironBoylston — I’ve had the opportunity to test and cook with dozens of pizza ovens. In this article, I’ll be comparing the Cru Champion and the Deco Chef Outdoor Pizza Oven, both of which I’ve personally used in my professional setup.
I’ve evaluated each oven based on quality and materials, temperature control, shape, first-time usage impressions, power source, size, ease of cleaning, and I also conducted a real pizza cooking test to see how long it actually takes to bake a Margherita pizza in both. If you’re curious about how I test pizza ovens in detail, I have a separate article outlining my full testing process.
The Cru Champion is a premium wood-fired oven made in Portugal, known for its excellent heat retention, large cooking surface, and heirloom-quality construction.
The Deco Chef oven, on the other hand, is a budget-friendly stainless steel option that heats up quickly and works with multiple fuel types, making it accessible for beginners.
Here, I’ve done an in-depth comparison of Cru Champion and the Deco Chef, backed by my test results.
This article contains referral links — if you decide to buy through them, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It really helps keep this blog going and supports all the time I put into these tests.
Cru Champion VS Deco Chef: Quality and Materials
| The Cru Champion oven is crafted from premium AISI304 stainless steel and insulated with thick dual walls, built to last for years of heavy use. |
The Deco Chef oven is made of stainless steel with triple insulation, but it feels more entry-level compared to the build quality of the Cru Champion.
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Cru Champion VS Deco Chef: Temperature Control
| The Cru Champion retains high heat consistently and reaches 950°F with great control, allowing stress-free pizza making. |
The Deco Chef also reaches 950°F, but holding that temperature is harder—especially in windy conditions or when refueling pellets.
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Cru Champion VS Deco Chef: Shape
| The Cru Champion features a semi-rounded dome and a spacious 24″x24″ cook area, ideal for pizzas, roasts, and more. |
The Deco Chef has a compact half-dome shape that works best for small pizzas, but it’s not suitable for larger portions or multiple pizzas at once.
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Cru Champion VS Deco Chef: First-Time Usage Impressions
| Unboxing and assembling the Cru Champion was simple. Most of it comes pre-assembled, and cooking was easy from the first use. |
The Deco Chef oven is easy to set up and beginner-friendly, though maintaining a stable flame requires a bit of practice.
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Cru Champion VS Deco Chef: Power Source
| The Cru Champion works with both wood and charcoal, giving users more flexibility in flavor and heat control. |
The Deco Chef runs only on hardwood pellets, which are convenient but less customizable than the multi-fuel capability of the Cru Champion.
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Cru Champion VS Deco Chef: Size
| The Cru Champion is large and heavy, best suited for stationary outdoor cooking. Its 24″ surface can handle two 10″ pizzas or one up to 18″. |
The Deco Chef is compact, lightweight, and ideal for travel or small backyards, but limited to 13″ pizzas or small meals.
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Cru Champion VS Deco Chef: Ease of Cleaning
| The Cru Champion is easy to maintain. Ash removal is simple, and the interior stays clean with regular brushing. |
The Deco Chef is also easy to wipe down, but ash and soot buildup in smaller spaces requires more frequent attention.
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Pizza Cooking Test
To fairly compare the Cru Champion and Deco Chef pizza ovens, I ran the same test for both: I preheated each oven to its maximum temperature and baked a classic Margherita pizza using the same dough, sauce, and toppings.
Cru Champion heated up impressively fast. Although the manufacturer states a 20-minute preheat, my thermometer hit 850°F in just under 13 minutes. Once at temperature, the oven maintained consistent heat thanks to its heavy insulation and ceramic stone floor. I placed the pizza directly onto the stone, and it was perfectly cooked in 96 seconds—crispy bottom, airy crust, a light char on the edges, and the cheese melted evenly without burning. The flavor had a distinct wood-fired depth, and the balance of chew and crunch was restaurant quality.
Deco Chef, on the other hand, took slightly longer to preheat—around 16–18 minutes to get close to 900°F. I used hardwood pellets as fuel and had to carefully manage the feed to keep the flame stable. Once ready, the pizza baked in 60–90 seconds, depending on pellet flame intensity. The taste was still solid—slightly less char on the bottom, and the stone cooked a bit unevenly, requiring a quick spin midway through baking. While the result was enjoyable and had a smoky flavor, it didn’t quite match the evenness or crisp texture of what I got from the Cru Champion.
Overall, both ovens delivered tasty pizzas, but the Cru Champion provided a more professional finish and required less adjustment mid-bake.
How We Tested
As a restaurant chef with over 10 years of experience at Dequte Restaurant LironBoylston, I took a hands-on approach to testing both the Cru Champion and Deco Chef pizza ovens. I set up both ovens in the same outdoor environment under similar weather conditions to ensure consistency. Each oven was fueled with its recommended source—wood or charcoal for the Cru Champion, and hardwood pellets for the Deco Chef.
To ensure a fair comparison, I used the same type of dough, sauce, and toppings for all tests, focusing on Margherita-style pizzas. I monitored preheat times using a calibrated infrared thermometer and cooked several pizzas in each oven to get a full sense of heat retention, stone behavior, and airflow performance. I paid close attention to how evenly the pizzas baked, how quickly the crust rose and browned, and how the toppings cooked.
Beyond pizza, I also briefly tested other foods like roasted vegetables and bread to evaluate overall cooking versatility. Cleaning and cooling times were also measured to assess usability after cooking. This approach gave me a complete picture of how each oven performs in a real-world, high-demand setting—just like we would in a busy restaurant kitchen.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, it’s your choice whether the Cru Champion or the Deco Chef oven fits your needs better. Both offer unique advantages depending on your cooking style, space, and budget. If you decide to buy one, I’d truly appreciate it if you used my referral links for purchasing—it helps keep my blog alive and supports the time I spend testing these ovens. I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
So here they are:
Take a minute to review the best pizza ovens.