There's lots of kinds of pizza out there. It seems like the commenters here haven't read the paper, because it goes over a sampling of the different styles in Italy, and you can not cook them all the same way, period. But a Neapolitan brick oven (or an equivalent) works for most of them.
However, you can approximate the specific variables of a Neapolitan brick oven by using two factors to your advantage: slow even conductive heat, and high radiant heat. You need these two because you're cooking two different kinds of food at once: bread, and cheese/vegetables.
For the conductive surface, you want something that retains a lot of heat, but not too much heat that it would burn the surface or overcook it before it's fully cooked through. I like a Dutch oven or very large cast iron skillet, as both retain a lot of heat and can transfer it effectively. In addition, you can add a lid to control the radiant heat on the top, as well as control water loss.
The surface radiant heat can be obtained with the broiler mode on a standard oven. By pre-heating a conductive surface, and controlling when the radiant heat is applied using a lid, you can time the bread cook time and surface cook time to obtain an even cook.
However, all this is very complicated and still not likely to work for all pizzas. So it's actually a bit easier to pre-cook the crust, add the toppings, and then cook the top as desired. This should work for virtually all pizza types as the bread is really the hardest part to get right (if you have good ingredients and a stable radiant heat source).
Pre-heating at the highest temperature setting for 45-60 minutes on the normal oven setting and then cooking on the broiler setting (again, properly pre-heated) works great for me. I also use a thick baking steel, hence the extensive pre-heating.
Works great, cooks amazing pizza in a couple of minutes.
However, you can approximate the specific variables of a Neapolitan brick oven by using two factors to your advantage: slow even conductive heat, and high radiant heat. You need these two because you're cooking two different kinds of food at once: bread, and cheese/vegetables.
For the conductive surface, you want something that retains a lot of heat, but not too much heat that it would burn the surface or overcook it before it's fully cooked through. I like a Dutch oven or very large cast iron skillet, as both retain a lot of heat and can transfer it effectively. In addition, you can add a lid to control the radiant heat on the top, as well as control water loss.
The surface radiant heat can be obtained with the broiler mode on a standard oven. By pre-heating a conductive surface, and controlling when the radiant heat is applied using a lid, you can time the bread cook time and surface cook time to obtain an even cook.
However, all this is very complicated and still not likely to work for all pizzas. So it's actually a bit easier to pre-cook the crust, add the toppings, and then cook the top as desired. This should work for virtually all pizza types as the bread is really the hardest part to get right (if you have good ingredients and a stable radiant heat source).