Grills And Ovens Across The Country

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.