Quick Answer: Authentic Pizza Ovens’ Pizzaioli line ($2,595-$3,995) is a handmade, wood-fired brick oven built in Portugal and shipped as a complete, cured masonry dome — no assembly or masonry skill required. It’s the cheapest way to own a real finished brick oven, undercutting Chicago Brick Oven’s $5,499+ starting price by roughly half, though it’s smaller and wood-only with no gas option.
Authentic Pizza Ovens has been mentioned across this site’s brick-oven coverage — its Pizzaioli line is the go-to budget pick in our best brick pizza oven roundup — but it never had its own dedicated review until now, despite “authentic pizza ovens” pulling real transactional search volume.
Authentic Pizza Ovens by the numbers
- $2,595: the entry price for the Pizzaioli Traditional, the cheapest finished (non-DIY) masonry brick oven covered on this site, per Patio & Pizza’s current listings.
- $3,995: the top of the Pizzaioli range, the Rustic finish, which adds a heavier stone-and-brick exterior over the same handmade dome and cooking floor as the cheaper tiers.
- 9 model variants: the total number of Pizzaioli configurations Authentic Pizza Ovens sells, differing in chimney material, door finish, and exterior treatment rather than cooking performance.
- Roughly half the price: what the Pizzaioli Traditional costs compared to Chicago Brick Oven’s entry-level CBO-500 ($5,499), the next step up in finished masonry ovens on this site.
Authentic Pizza Ovens vs Chicago Brick Oven
| Oven | Fuel | Assembly | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pizzaioli Traditional | Wood only | Ships fully built and cured | $2,595 |
| Pizzaioli PREMIUM | Wood only | Ships fully built and cured | $2,795 |
| Pizzaioli Rustic | Wood only | Ships fully built and cured | $3,995 |
| Chicago Brick Oven CBO-500 | Wood only | Ships fully built | $5,499 |
| Chicago Brick Oven CBO-750 Mobile | Wood only (Hybrid adds gas) | Pre-assembled on cart | $8,299 |
What you actually get
Authentic Pizza Ovens Pizzaioli Traditional
- Handmade brick dome, cured and shipped as a complete, ready-to-fire oven — you place it and run a few low fires per the included instructions before cooking at full temperature.
- Stainless steel chimney flue and an iron door, the standard-tier hardware; the PREMIUM and Rustic tiers swap in an upgraded, non-rust aluminum chimney and door for $200 more.
- Wood-fired only, built for the same live-fire cooking a Pompeii-style DIY oven produces, without the build.
Authentic Pizza Ovens doesn’t sell the Pizzaioli through Amazon or bundle accessories with it — it ships direct from a dealer like Patio & Pizza, so budget separately for a peel, infrared thermometer, and cover the way you would for any masonry oven. Try Amazon Prime free for 30 days so those accessories (and the firewood, dough ingredients, and cover you’ll want on delivery day) show up in two days instead of waiting on the oven’s own freight shipment.
The handmade Portuguese construction is the real selling point here — Authentic Pizza Ovens leads with “handmade in a town north of Lisbon” in its own marketing, and the appeal is specifically the masonry craftsmanship, not speed or portability. That’s also the honest trade-off: at $2,595-$3,995 you’re still paying several times what a portable metal oven like an Ooni or Gozney costs, for an oven that takes far longer to heat and can’t be moved once installed.
Who should actually buy this
- Buy the Pizzaioli Traditional if you want the cheapest real path into a finished, handmade masonry oven and don’t need the larger cooking surface Chicago Brick Oven offers.
- Buy Chicago Brick Oven instead if budget allows and you want a bigger deck or a pre-assembled mobile-cart setup — see our Chicago Brick Oven review for the full breakdown.
- Skip it entirely if you want gas convenience or portability — the Pizzaioli is wood-only and a permanent installation. A portable pizza oven fits a move-it-around use case far better.
The bottom line
The Authentic Pizza Ovens Pizzaioli is the most affordable way to own a genuinely handmade masonry brick oven, at roughly half the price of Chicago Brick Oven’s entry-level CBO-500. What you give up for that price is size and fuel flexibility — it’s wood-only and smaller than the CBO line’s larger decks. For a backyard cook who wants the real masonry experience without the DIY build or the $5,000+ buy-in, the Pizzaioli Traditional is the honest starting point; step up to Chicago Brick Oven once budget and cooking-surface needs grow past what a compact handmade dome can deliver.
Pricing and specifications cited from Authentic Pizza Ovens’ Pizzaioli line as listed via Patio & Pizza, current as of August 2026.