I was recently invited to a cooking demo of the Quad Cooker, a high-temperature, naturally fired cooker with the inventor, Ray Palermo. If you’re not familiar with the Quad Cooker from Kickstarter page, have a looky-loo at Kickstarter page or this video.

“The Quad cooker grill cooks pizzas, steaks, and is the first naturally fired home cooker that lets you achieve professional temperatures of 900˚F for optimum flavor.”

Ray was cooking up a storm, working no less than four of the Quads on his porch. He made a variety of foods while cheerfully answering questions about the inspiration, development, and use of his invention.

As he stated in the video, Ray’s inspiration for the Quad Cooker came from wanting to make paella. He whipped up two very large pans of the stuff and it was simply delicious – cooked to perfection.

During this time, I snuck my first feel (of many) of the side of the cooker block. The surface is ever so slightly warm to the touch, with hot charcoal cranking out 900ºF temperatures just a couple of inches away. Remarkable, and perfect for little reaching hands that might be burned by the sides of a typical grill.

Next, Ray put out a pizza stone and made several small pizzas in succession. The Quad Cooker cooked them quickly and evenly – though sometimes quicker than one man watching four cookers at the same time can keep up with!

It seems unlikely that anyone else would try to run that many Quads at once, so if a home cook were carefully watching their pizza masterpiece, I think they would be very pleased with the experience and the results.

After the pizzas were done, Ray removed the stone and set about searing some beef. It came out wonderfully, with a great sear and a nice red center.

On another Quad, Ray used a wok ring and a wok to start a fry party, starting with fish and some really satisfying onion hay, and finishing up with delectable zeppole!

The Quad Cooker is more affordable and has higher top-end temperatures than a Big Green Egg, but (I assume) without the smoking capabilities, which is fine – I see no problem with just buying a smoker if that’s what you want. We already have one anyway.

Basically, it seems to offer all functionality of a standard grill plus extra forms of cooking at even but extremely high temperatures, as evidenced by the demonstration. Considering all of these factors, it’s a more versatile grill for about the same price as some of the decent grills out there. Of course, we can’t yet be sure how long it will last, how durable it is, etc. but the Quad Cooker is certainly a very intriguing piece of cooking equipment! If you’re looking for high heat and versatility, I would definitely recommend checking it out.

(Being that this was a cooking demonstration event hosted by the head of the company selling this product, Adam and I received the food we sampled without charge. Regardless, the thoughts and words in this post are our own.)

We had a great time at the demo for a great product, eating great food. Thanks to Ray Palermo for cooking and Malika Bowling for organizing and inviting us. Shout out to foodie friends old and new spotted at the event, including David Jones of EatBufordHighway, Andrea Janise, and Ale Sharpton.