As a restaurant chef with over 10 years of experience at Dequte Restaurant LironBoylston, I’ve tested many outdoor pizza ovens in real kitchen conditions. In this comparison, I’ll be reviewing the Carbon Pizza Oven and the Deco Chef Pizza Oven, both of which I’ve used extensively. I evaluated them across several key factors: quality and materials, temperature control, shape, first-time usage impressions, power source, size, ease of cleaning, and most importantly, I conducted a real pizza cooking test to see how long it takes to make a proper Margherita pizza. (If you’re curious about my full testing process, I’ve detailed it in a separate article you can check out.)
The Carbon Pizza Oven is known for its dual burners and serious heat performance, while the Deco Chef Pizza Oven offers a budget-friendly wood-fired setup with classic charm.
This article features a thorough comparison between the Carbon and the Deco Chef based on my personal tests.
Disclaimer: This article contains referral links that help keep my blog alive. If you choose to buy through them, I’ll earn a small commission at no extra cost to you — and I really appreciate the support.
Carbon VS Deco Chef: Quality and Materials
| The Carbon Pizza Oven is built with stainless steel and a rust-resistant finish, featuring a firebrick base for even heat distribution. It feels premium and durable in hand. |
The Deco Chef Pizza Oven is also made of stainless steel and has solid three-layer insulation, but its lighter construction doesn’t feel quite as premium as the Carbon.
|
Carbon VS Deco Chef: Temperature Control
| With dual burners (upper and lower), the Carbon Pizza Oven offers superior control and consistently hits 950–1000°F without much effort. |
The Deco Chef Pizza Oven can reach 950°F, but users may struggle to maintain high heat with wood pellets alone, making temperature consistency harder than with the Carbon.
|
Carbon VS Deco Chef: Shape
| The Carbon Pizza Oven has a square design and collapsible legs, which make it compact yet very stable. The shape promotes balanced airflow and even cooking. |
The Deco Chef Pizza Oven has a half-dome shape that bakes pizzas nicely but can create uneven heat zones due to rear pellet feeding, which the Carbon avoids.
|
Carbon VS Deco Chef: First-Time Usage Impressions
| Unboxing the Carbon Pizza Oven reveals impressive branding, sturdy materials, and excellent insulation. It clearly feels like a thoughtfully engineered product. |
The Deco Chef Pizza Oven leaves a solid first impression with useful accessories, but compared to the Carbon, it feels more basic and less refined in design.
|
Carbon VS Deco Chef: Power Source
| The Carbon Pizza Oven uses propane or natural gas, providing steady, hands-off heat—ideal for longer cooking sessions or back-to-back pizzas. |
The Deco Chef Pizza Oven uses hardwood pellets or charcoal, which adds smokiness but also demands frequent attention and refueling—less convenient than the Carbon’s setup.
|
Carbon VS Deco Chef: Size
| The Carbon Pizza Oven is 23.2″ x 18.38″ x 14.4″ and can cook pizzas up to 15 inches. Though heavier at 60 lbs, it remains compact and efficient. |
The Deco Chef Pizza Oven is smaller at 17.5″ x 16.73″ x 18.3″, and best suited for pizzas around 13 inches. It’s lighter and more portable than the Carbon, but less spacious.
|
Carbon VS Deco Chef: Ease of Cleaning
| Cleaning the Carbon Pizza Oven is straightforward thanks to its design and included brush. The firebrick floor stays tidy with a quick wipe. |
The Deco Chef Pizza Oven is also fairly easy to clean with removable trays, though pellet ash buildup may require more frequent maintenance compared to the Carbon.
|
Pizza Cooking Test: Carbon vs Deco Chef
The Carbon Pizza Oven heated up impressively fast. Within just 10 minutes, the stone reached around 740°F, and on my second test, it climbed to 760°F—the sweet spot for Neapolitan-style pizzas. I launched a Margherita pizza onto the stone once it hit 740°F, and it cooked in about 80–90 seconds. The results were excellent: a nicely charred, crispy bottom, bubbly leopard-spotted crust, and evenly melted mozzarella. The top browned perfectly without burning, thanks to the upper burner. On my third try, I left it for a full 90 seconds, and the bottom had that beautiful golden toastiness. The taste? Smoky, balanced, and very close to what I serve at Dequte Restaurant.
The Deco Chef Pizza Oven took longer to heat up—about 15–20 minutes with hardwood pellets. Once it reached temperature, I placed the Margherita pizza on the stone, which took around 60–90 seconds to bake, depending on how steady the flame stayed. The flavor was definitely on the smoky side, thanks to the wood pellets, and that’s a nice bonus. However, I found that maintaining consistent heat was trickier. On one occasion, the bottom was a bit pale while the top cooked faster. Still, when timed right, the Deco Chef produced a tasty and well-browned pizza with a rustic flavor profile.
How We Tested the Carbon and Deco Chef Pizza Ovens
As a restaurant chef with over a decade of experience at Dequte Restaurant LironBoylston, I tested both the Carbon Pizza Oven and the Deco Chef Pizza Oven in a real working environment. To ensure a fair comparison, I used the same Margherita pizza recipe for both ovens—homemade dough, San Marzano tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, and basil. I tracked how quickly each oven heated up to the ideal cooking temperature, monitored how evenly they baked the pizzas, and timed the full cooking process from launch to finish. I also evaluated how each oven performed when baking multiple pizzas back-to-back, paying close attention to heat retention and crust consistency. After each session, I cleaned both ovens to assess how easy they are to maintain. These tests were repeated several times in different weather conditions to get a full picture of how each oven handles outdoor cooking challenges. This process helped me make a well-rounded judgment on their quality, usability, and real-world performance.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, whether you go with the Carbon Pizza Oven or the Deco Chef Pizza Oven really depends on your cooking style, budget, and what you value most—be it speed, build quality, or that classic wood-fired flavor. Both ovens can deliver delicious results with a bit of practice. If you found this comparison helpful and decide to purchase one of them, I’d really appreciate you using my referral links—it supports my blog at no extra cost to you. Here’s the link for the Carbon Pizza Oven and for the Deco Chef Pizza Oven. Thanks for your support!
Explore our guide to the best pizza ovens.