Barrel Vault Ovens

A barrel vault is a straight arch rather than a hemisphere, which gives a rectangular cooking floor and a consistent roof height front to back. It trades a little pizza performance for a chamber you can actually load.

Why the shape matters

A round dome floor fights standard roasting trays and gastronorm pans. A vault takes them without improvised trivets, and spreads heat more evenly across the whole floor rather than concentrating it in a hot centre.

The trade-off, stated plainly

A dome returns radiant heat more efficiently, so a Neapolitan bake in a vault typically runs closer to 100 seconds than 80. Most kitchens never notice; a dedicated pizzeria will. If you cook pizza and almost nothing else, buy the dome.

Who they suit

Lodge and all-day-dining kitchens running pizza at lunch and roasting trays at dinner, and bakeries where tin and tray loading is the priority. Our 110 cm vault takes four 1/1 gastronorm pans.

Working the chamber

A vault is easier to learn on than a dome. Straight walls and consistent roof height make peel work predictable — there is no hot centre to find and no curved wall to catch a peel against — so less experienced operators tend to get consistent results faster.

Loading is also simpler. Trays go in square, gastronorm pans sit flat, and you can use the full depth rather than working around a curve. For a kitchen where several people use the oven, that predictability is worth more than the last few seconds of bake time.

Specification

Same build as our domes — calcium silicate base, 65 mm high-alumina hearth laid dry, firebrick arch in refractory castable, 50 mm ceramic fibre and 100 mm rockwool. Only the geometry changes. Available wood-fired or gas, and we set the chamber proportions against the pan sizes you actually use rather than a standard drawing.