Grassmarket Pub Crane Lifts £25,000 Pizza Oven Through Roof
In February of this year, Grassmarket’s newest pub, Cold Town House opened. Owned by Cold Town Beer, the lager only made its debut in pubs last year. Much was made about the level of investment put into the three-story pub. CTH ordered a £25,000 custom-built pizza oven from Naples that was shipped over, then crane lifted through the roof of the building.
The four-year project to restore the former Robertson Memorial Church into a pub gave the owners and planners a lot of time to think up their plan for their signature pizzas. The four-million-pound investment from Signature Pub Group allowed the pub to source the best oven they could find for their Edinburgh inspired Neapolitan pizzas.
The oven is situated in the Prosecco bar on the top floor of the indoors section of the pub. Using a pulley system, the chefs are able to send pizzas to all of the bars within the venue.
Carlos Conde, shift manager at CTH, spoke about
why they decided to go buy such an expensive oven.
“You pay for quality; this oven isn able to be used until it has been lit for eight days.
“The oven needs time to dry out, but the good thing is we can turn the oven off at night because the oven has such high heat retention.”
He went into more detail about the oven.
“We can only fit six pizzas in at a time. It may sound like a problem, considering we have spent £25,000 on it, but they cook in just over a minute, because the oven reaches about 440°C, so we are actually saving time and making the best quality product with this oven.
“It’s a gas oven, but we also have the ability to use wood, but practically it’s not viable at the minute.”
The pub and its pizzas have been a hit with locals and tourists already, with Cold Town House having four and a half stars from 150 reviews on TripAdvisor already.
