Alfa Forni Moderno Portable Pizza Oven Review 

Breanna StarkFebruary 14, 2024February 16, 2024

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There are so many pizza ovens on the market today, but the Alfa Forni brand stands out with a reputation for quality and design with headquarters between Roma and Napoli, in the birthplace of pizza.

Alfa offers several different lines and models for their Italian-crafted pizza ovens, and I have been lucky enough to try out the Moderno portable model.

Today I’m going to be walking through the ins and outs of this versatile oven and giving you the scoop on whether it’s a good buy.

Alfa Moderno Portable Pizza Oven

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Specifications and first impressions

I’m not going to lie. I was pretty excited when Alfa reached out and wanted to send me this pizza oven. I have tried a few propane/portable pizza ovens as well as a few “convert your grill to a pizza oven” products and haven’t been overly impressed. In some cases, I felt like I was better off just using my actual oven in my kitchen.

I knew Alfa Forni had a great reputation and made quality products, so I was curious how it compared to some of the more mass-market models.

Upon opening the case, I was impressed with the bold red color and sleek oven design. It reminds me of a full-size pizza oven that you would find at a fancy, wood-fired pizza joint.

I received the Antique Red color, but the oven additionally comes in Slate Grey if that’s more your style.

Now, looping back around to the portable nature of the oven. I would say it it’s “portable” compared to your full size brick ovens. The oven is still around 70lbs, which I’m not sure can be really considered portable.

For context, the Ooni Koda weighs in a 20.4 lbs

Sure, you can take it with you, but you’ll probably need a buddy to help you move it!

Alfa Forni Moderno Portable Pizza Oven specifications:

Assembly & first cooks 

Assembling the Alfa Moderno was a breeze. All we had to do was to screw in the 4 feet, insert the chimney, and it was ready to go. It’s a propane oven, so you must also hook up your standard propane tank.

You can optionally opt for a natural gas version of the oven as well or pick out one of their larger, wood-burning models.

The oven takes about 30 minutes to fully preheat (it may sound like a while, but it’s reaching over 900°F, so to me, it made sense. The Ooni Koda takes the same amount of time to reach 450°F, as a comparison). Once the oven is preheated, you can cook a pizza in just a few minutes.

It blew my mind how quickly our pizzas were done!

I admittedly screwed up the first pizza I tried to cook because I didn’t let the oven preheat long enough. I tried to save it by turning it into a calzone, but that didn’t work either (oops!). Luckily, the learning curve was swift, and we had better luck with pizzas #2 and #3!

The cooking space is quite a bit less than I expected for the weight of the oven. The oven is bigger than a lot of the other “portable” propane ovens I’ve tried, but the cooking space only fits a small pizza.

The crust was cooked perfectly with the nice, Neapolitan-style crust you know and love. The sauce and cheese were melty but not burnt, and overall, I was impressed with how quickly we were able to make pizzeria-style pizza at home.

Should you buy the Alfa Forni Moderno?

I’m going to shoot it straight – the Alfa is one of the pricier portable pizza ovens on the market. There are several other portable models that are significantly cheaper, and I’ve tried a lot of them!

The thing that really stands out to me about the Alfa is the top-tier quality. It has the quality of a professional oven and cooks pizzas like nothing I’ve used before. It reaches higher temperatures than most propane ovens on the market, and it utilizes high-quality technology to ensure your pizzas are top-notch every single time.

If you’re looking for a staple in your backyard to have regular pizza nights with friends and family, I believe the Alfa is a solid investment worth the price tag. It looks amazing, it cooks great pizza, it conserves fuel – what more could you want?

If you’re still not sure the Alfa is for you, check out the other pizza ovens we reviewed.