Fontana Maestro 60: The Gas Pizza Oven Worth Owning
Fontana Maestro 60: The Gas Pizza Oven Worth Owning
There is something genuinely special about pulling a perfectly charred, blistered pizza from a proper oven in your own back garden. Not a pale, soggy approximation from a domestic kitchen oven. Not a rushed result from a cheap countertop gadget. The real thing. Leopard-spotted crusts, bubbling cheese, that unmistakable aroma of authentic Neapolitan cooking. If that is what you are after, the Fontana Forni Maestro 60 Gas Pizza Oven deserves your full attention.
We stock this oven because it genuinely earns its place in any serious outdoor kitchen. Here is everything you need to know.
What Makes the Maestro 60 Different
Most gas pizza ovens position their burner on the side of the cooking chamber. It seems logical enough, but it creates an unavoidable problem: uneven heat. Hot spots form, cooking becomes inconsistent, and you spend more time rotating your pizza than enjoying the process.
Fontana Forni took a different approach. The Maestro 60 places its 29,000 BTU stainless steel burner on the bottom of the cooking chamber, directly beneath the cooking floor. Heat distributes uniformly from the ground up, reaching every corner of the 60x40 cm cordierite stone floor without the temperature variations that compromise lesser ovens.
The result is a cooking surface that behaves more like a professional commercial oven than anything else available at this price point. Two 12-inch pizzas cook simultaneously and evenly, without either one getting more heat than the other.
Temperatures That Actually Matter
Authentic Neapolitan pizza requires extreme heat. We are talking 900°F (482°C), which is the maximum rating on the Maestro 60 and the highest temperature specification available in this category. At that heat, a properly prepared pizza cooks in 60 to 90 seconds. The crust blisters and chars in exactly the right places whilst the centre stays perfectly cooked.
The Maestro 60 reaches 750°F in approximately 30 minutes from a cold start. That is not an estimate stretched for marketing purposes; it is a genuine performance figure made possible by the combination of the bottom-burner design and 12 centimetres of natural rock wool insulation surrounding the cooking chamber.
That insulation also keeps the exterior safe to touch during operation. For anyone cooking with children nearby, that matters considerably.
A Red Dot Award Winner for Good Reason
The Red Dot Product Design Award 2022 is not handed out lightly. It recognises exceptional design that balances aesthetics, function, and engineering innovation. The Maestro 60 won it because Fontana Forni managed to pack professional-grade performance into a compact countertop footprint without making any meaningful compromises.
The construction uses painted steel and premium stainless steel throughout. The exterior is electro-galvanised and powder-coated, which means it handles British weather without deteriorating. Rain, frost, and the occasional summer heatwave are not concerns. This oven is built for decades of use, not a few seasons.
Inside the cooking chamber, a thick steel flame hitter protects the vault from thermal stress whilst improving heat distribution further. The integrated built-in analogue thermometer gives you accurate temperature readings at a glance without opening the door and losing precious heat from the stone.
Fuel Efficiency You Will Actually Notice
A single 20-pound propane tank provides approximately 15 hours of cooking at full capacity. For context, that is a significant number of pizza nights, family gatherings, and outdoor dinner parties from one tank. The sophisticated smoke outlet circuit forces heat to stay longer inside the cooking chamber, extracting maximum cooking performance from minimum fuel.
If you are planning a permanent outdoor kitchen installation, an optional natural gas conversion kit is available separately, removing the need for propane tanks entirely.
Beyond Pizza
The Maestro 60 is engineered primarily for pizza, but the same qualities that make it exceptional for Neapolitan cooking make it genuinely versatile across a wide range of dishes.
Artisan bread baking benefits enormously from the retained heat and even stone temperature. Sourdough, focaccia, and ciabatta come out with the kind of crust you usually only find in a proper bakery. Roasted meats develop that concentrated flavour and proper caramelisation that a conventional oven cannot reproduce at lower temperatures. Cast-iron skillet cooking works brilliantly in the spacious 40x60x20 cm interior, and the intense radiant heat produces sear marks on steaks and seafood that rival any professional grill.
This is not a one-trick oven. It is a proper outdoor cooking centrepiece.
75 Years of Italian Heritage
Fontana Forni was founded in 1946 by Giuseppe Fontana in San Lorenzo in Campo, in Italy's Marche region. The company built the first metal wood-fired pizza oven in 1978, and three generations of the Fontana family have been refining that craft ever since. Giovanni, Marco, Alessandro, and Nicola Fontana oversee production personally in their Italian facilities.
Every single Maestro 60 is 100% designed, engineered, and manufactured in Italy. This is not component assembly from imported parts. Every element is precision laser cut, bent, and inspected in the Fontana workshops. That level of quality control is exactly what separates a piece of equipment that performs flawlessly for decades from something that disappoints after a season.
What You Get When You Order from Us
As an authorised UK dealer for Fontana Forni, we back every Maestro 60 purchase with the complete manufacturer warranty: a two-year warranty against manufacturer defects and an exceptional four-year warranty on the cooking chamber dome. You are buying a genuine product with full manufacturer support, not a grey-market import.
Every order includes free UK mainland delivery, with professional courier services ensuring safe, tracked arrival at your door. Our customer support team is available seven days a week, Monday to Sunday from 9am to 8pm, for setup guidance, operating advice, or anything else you need throughout your ownership.
The Maestro 60 currently sits at £975.00 (reduced from £1,049.00), representing a saving of £74.00. At that price, with that specification, that heritage, and that level of post-purchase support, it stands as one of the most compelling purchases in the outdoor cooking category right now.
If you are ready to take your outdoor cooking seriously, order the Fontana Forni Maestro 60 Gas Pizza Oven directly from us and have it delivered free to your door. The first pizza you pull from it will tell you everything you need to know.