Gi.Metal

Origins and philosophy

Gi.Metal was born in Tuscany in 1986, in a small workshop set up to solve a very specific need felt by pizzaioli. Ever since, it has stuck to one trade with almost artisanal devotion: making the tools a pizzaiolo actually needs. Today it manufactures from its headquarters in Montale (Pistoia), and you will find its gear in pizzerias around the world. This is not a brand you come to know through advertising, but because it lives behind the oven, in the hands of people who fire hundreds of pizzas a day.

What sets it apart

What wins us over is that Gi.Metal thinks like a professional, not like a maker of pretty accessories. It pioneered the perforated peel, the one that lets excess flour drop away before it scorches on the oven floor, and that same engineering instinct runs right through its range. There is no marketing filler here, just aluminium, steel and answers to real problems.

Our verdict

From Gi.Metal we've selected its 40 by 35 cm pizza steel, 4 mm thick, and it matters far more than its understated looks suggest. The secret is thermal inertia: steel stores a huge amount of heat and releases it in one rush into the dough the moment the pizza lands. That initial blast is precisely what a home oven — and even a ceramic like our Big Green Egg Large below a certain temperature — struggles to deliver on its own. What this piece is built to give you is a base that is airy inside and crisp outside, with the leoparding you associate with a proper Neapolitan pie. On a well-preheated surface, worked with patience, it is the kind of accessory that rewards method: no gimmick and no magic fix, but an honest piece of kit.

What you'll find from Gi.Metal here

For now we have chosen its 40 by 35 cm pizza steel, the tool we recommend as a starting point for anyone wanting to raise their dough game without renovations or specialist ovens. It is our gateway into a brand we trust for its track record and judgement, rather than for the size of its catalogue.