Slice of Tuscany Tom and Lisa Cohn and their Mugnaini wood-fired oven.

Andrea Mugnaini, whose company has designed, fabricated, and imported the ovens since 1995, maintains that the smooth firebrick floor and refractory clay dome account for the terrific heat retention of the ovens that allows for three-minute cooking time for pizzas. "But when I teach about cooking with our ovens, I stress their versatility. Not only do the ovens create a social, interactive focal point in a home, but we can integrate all styles of cooking in them: braising, roasting, baking," she says. Her least expensive stove costs $2,750, without delivery.

Lauren Groveman, cooking teacher and cookbook author, ordered her Mugnaini on impulse and then built her patio in Larchmont around it. "After 21 years in our house, we were finally ready to replace our swing set with a patio," she says. Finished with a clay roof, a stucco body, and a stone base, the oven mimics the materials of her 100-year-old home. Groveman says she encountered no zoning or construction difficulties with the installation. She estimates the price six years ago at $2,000 for the oven and another $2,000 to install.

"When I work with the outdoor oven, I feel like a combination of Betty Crocker and Davey Crockett! It's such an earthy, hypnotic experience, completely different from a kitchen or even a grill." Nevertheless, despite her professional culinary skills, Groveman says the oven "stared at me" for two years before she became comfortable using it: "I was scared of failing with the oven." During the first fires, the billowing smoke attracted the concern of her local policeman, who peered into her backyard to make sure she was all right. Now she's still learning and loves involving her children in the process of firing the oven to between 500 and 850 degrees and then bringing it down to embers to roast chicken, fish, or pizza. This summer she's getting ready to take on bread baking in the oven.

The brick or masonry oven cooks simultaneously from above—with dome heat, reflective heat, and convection—and from below, with heat retained in the cooking surface. The process of stoking it to temperature, which can take between one and three hours, and learning how each oven cooks and the timing of certain dishes are all part of the appeal. You get to know your stove through mindfully working with it.

Ovens are ordered directly from the manufacturers and importers, with installation arranged locally. Among all brands, some models are preassembled and some are modular. Some can be fitted for gas. Spirit Elements even sells a compact, freestanding model that resembles a conventional barbecue. Some smaller kits can be installed in a fireplace or built into a home kitchen.

At Cucina Casalinga, cookbook author Sally Maraventano's home-based cooking school in Wilton, Connecticut, the pizza oven, faced in Connecticut bluestone, was installed next to her Wolff grill as part of her patio wall. "My grandfather was a baker from Sicily. He made us wood-fired pizza every Sunday in the evening, even after a three-hour Sunday dinner." (See recipe, opposite.) Maraventano selected the Mugnaini oven because she had closely observed the ovens that Italians use during her 13 years of leading culinary tours to Tuscany and other areas of Italy: "I wanted an authentic beehive oven. Now I teach wood-fired cooking and use it all year-round; I've even made New Year's Eve dinners in it." Her beloved Medio, a small commercial-style unit with a six-by-six-foot interior space, cost roughly $4,000 three years ago, but the masonry was "many thousands more," she says.

Another popular oven is Earthstone, designed and manufactured by Jean Paul Yotnegparian, who boasts about his ovens' built-in temperature gauges, cool-to-the-touch cast-aluminum door handles, and dense heat-holding structure. Begun by his father in 1987, the company currently offers their least expensive oven at $2,450, with another $450 for shipping to our area and another $2,000 to $2,500 for installation.

Maria Bilotta, co-owner of Bilotta Kitchens, a cabinetry company with five showrooms in the area, recently chose an Earthstone oven for her home because it fit perfectly into a limited space. She has since installed four wood-fired ovensfor clients, and her brother is building an even bigger one at his home. "My whole neighborhood is lining up for the pizzas," she says. Bilotta's grandfather, an immigrant mason, had built a wood-burning pizza oven in his own backyard, and Bilotta uses her grandmother's recipe: "It's really reviving the family tradition."