Alfa Ovens, an Italian company specializing in outdoor wood-fired ovens, is expanding into the North American market –giving home chefs the ability to cook delicious pizza, bread, meats, vegetables and more at temperatures that can only be reached outdoors. “We imagine a world where the wood-fired oven becomes an intuitive device for everybody,” Alfa founder Rocco Lauro said. “We’d like to bring people back to their roots and see one of our flame ovens in every home.”

Forty years ago, Lauro and his cousin Marcello decided to build a wood-fired oven for their own backyard parties in Italy. From the beginning, it was important to the cousins that the ovens look as beautifully as they cooked. After much trial and error, the Forno Tradizionale was born.

Fast forward a few decades. By then, Alfa Ovens had become a family affair with both cousins’ full families involved in the business. During a party in 2010, Lauro’s son Andrea noticed guests loved the food but didn’t love waiting three hours for it to be ready to eat. So he came up with an idea. Why not use the patented heat flow technology the family was already using in its stainless steel heaters in its ovens, as well?

At first, Rocco and Marcello were skeptical. After all, customers already loved the Forno Tradizionale. But eventually, they agreed to give Andrea’s idea a shot – but with one condition. The oven’s design had to remain true to that of their original creation.

Andrea’s idea was a hit with the company’s smallest oven reaching a working temperature in just 10 minutes and baking pizzas for 50 people in just one hour. Since then, Alfa has developed an expansive collection of residential and commercial ovens for both outdoor and indoor use. Constructed with 304 stainless steel, their ovens incorporate the finest Italian ceramic materials as well as double layers of European rock wool insulation and are engineered to achieve optimum cooking temperatures in less than 10 minutes.

Having achieved great success in Italy and across Europe, Alfa is now excited to bring its innovative ovens to the U.S. Market. Wood-fire cooking has become increasingly popular in U.S. restaurants, and Alfa’s ovens provide home chefs the same innovation without the high cost.

Early ovens were built-in masonry projects. Purchasing the proper components was somewhat expensive, and construction required an experienced mason. As a result, the cost of installing an oven was usually $6000 or more. In addition, the ovens were a challenge to use, as they often required several hours to build up to the proper temperature for baking.

Alfa’s innovation changed all that. The smallest Alfa oven can reach the target temperature of 700 degrees in less than 10 minutes. The slim structure does not require a large amount of space and also features wheels that allow home chefs to move it wherever they’d like and store it when not in use.
A wide array of accessories, from attached prep tables to grill covers, utensils and pans, are also available to enhance and improve the outdoor cooking experience.

www.alfaovens.com