At the table, food is either hot or cold.

But in the kitchen, chefs know that temperature covers a much broader spectrum.

To wit, we peeked under the hoods of several new restaurants around the country, and discovered a factory's worth of unique cooking vessels.

Click here to see our infographic, which charts how hot your food actually is: The extreme temperatures might surprise you.

For instance, cold pizza satisfies in its own right, but at Boulder's Pizzeria Locale, the pies are cooked at a smoldering 1,000° thanks to an oven heated with long-burning pecan and birch wood.

And the trick to fluffy naan and tender roasted meats at Philadelphia's Tashan is a tandoor clay oven powered with heated lava rocks.

In Raleigh, the low, controlled temperature of a pressure cooker creates moist and crisp fried chicken at Beasley's Chicken + Honey, while New York's Mas (La Grillade) installed a custom-built 4,000-pound grill--powered completely by wood fire--to cook the majority of the menu.

If you want to be the master of your own thermodynamic fate, this tabletop grill from Korin covers an impressive range; it's capable of heat levels of up to 1,000°.

The heat is on.