VillaWare Pizza Grill Review

  Posted on March 28, 2009

Well, we thought we had it good when we made pizza straight on the grill, but this product really does convert your grill into a pizza oven. Some may ask, “why not just cook the pizza in the oven?”.  We’ll tell you why! Typical kitchen ovens just can’t match the temperature of a real pizza oven, and what a difference that high temperature makes!  You see, you need that high heat to create a the perfect pizza with a light, crispy crusts and hot bubbly cheese. The good news is that you have the means to create the perfect, high heat pizza oven right in your own backyard.  Pair your outdoor grill with the Villaware Pizza Grill and cook the perfect pizza every time, along with some other delicious treats you may not have ever thought to throw on the grill.

So what’s the big deal?
The first thing we noticed is how heavy the box was when it arrived. Nice that Amazon gives free shipping for such a heavy item. The pizza grill is built out of a high quality, thick pizza stone (about 3/4 inches thick) set on a stainless steel frame. The frame also provides a back splash that keeps the pizza from getting away from you when you are trying to remove it from the stone. A built in thermometer is included that you slide into the frame. This is a nice feature to make sure the stone is ready for cooking.

How’s it work?
We quickly assembled the PizzaGrill in a matter of minutes and had it in place on the grill. Assembly only involves placing the pizza stone on the frame and sliding the thermometer into place.  Following the instructions from VillaWare, we started with a cold grill to avoid cracking the stone and placed the entire assembly to one side of the grill.

Then we fired up the grill on high and closed the lid for 15 minutes. This was a great time to get our trusty assistant busy building our inaugural pizza stone pizza on a flat cookie sheet so that we could slide it easily onto the grill.  NOTE: After burning a finger trying to use the cookie sheet, we can’t more highly recommend buying a pizza peel, it’s SO much easier to slide the pizza on and off the grill safely :).

After the first 15 minutes, we reduced the burners to medium and continued to heat for another 15 minutes. Our thermometer was reading “in the zone” at about 600 degrees at this point, so we slid our pizza onto the pizza stone and quickly closed the lid to retain the heat.

We followed the directions and didn’t peek for about 3 – 4 minutes (though it was hard to resist the urge to look, given wonderful smells wafting from the grill!). The crust wasn’t burning so we let it cook for another 3 minutes and peeked again. Don’t get too far from it though, at this point burning can happen quickly so keep an eye on it by lifting the edge with a spatula.  After a few more minutes, the pizza looked great, so we pulled it from the grill.  It took less than 10 minutes overall to cook the pizza.

So, how’d it taste?
mmmmmmmmmmmmm. Certainly the best pizza we have ever cooked at home, and it compares with the best pizza’s we’ve ever eaten.  The extreme heat from the stone makes the outside of the crust nice and crispy, while keeping the inside soft.

Can it cook anything other than pizza?
Though the instructions didn’t mention it, we immediately knew it would be good for quesadillas. So once we were done eating the pizza, we grilled some chicken breasts, red peppers and onions right next to the VillaWare frame.  Once the chicken was ready, we cut it up into smaller pieces and assembled a quesadilla.

With the pizza stone still in the “zone”, we slid on the quesadilla.

After only about 2 minutes, the cheese was melted, so the only thing left was to fold it in half and remove from the grill.

As with the pizza, the quesadillas were just amazing.  We added some homemade guacamole that finished off the dish nicely.

The instructions that come with the Pizza Grill also include a recipe for Rosemary and Garlic Flatbread, which is amazing and is well worth a try.  That recipe gave us some other great ideas for flat bread ingredients that we are planning on trying and posting in the future.

So was it worth the money?

To be honest, we were skeptical at first when we ordered the VillaWare Pizza Grill.  We had already been grilling pizzas straight on the grill for some time, but sometimes the charring associated with that method could ruin an unwatched pizza.  Once we tried the pizza grill and realized how easy it was, we were hooked.  The fact that it turns out to be a multi-tasker makes it that much easier to recommend.  The kids love building and making their own pizzas and quesadillas on the grill!
Buy your’s here!