Yesterday I went into New York City and picked up a loaf of ciabatta from a little restaurant. Their ciabatta is great with a crispy crust, open crumb, and delicious flavor. They always include a score (hard to see perhaps, but there is even an ear), and the crust has a deeper color than I am able to achieve. Any guesses on any aspect of their bake (to help me get closer to something like this)?
Ciabatta is hard to score so the hydration in this one is probably not at the extreme end of the scale though it is clearly pretty loose dough. To get the coloration shown the oven (and especially the top of the oven) will have to be quite hot. I would not be surprised if it is in the 490-530°F range. You can get some sense of whether it was baked hot or baked long by looking at the crust thickness but to get the charring shown in the photo more oven time will probably not do it alone.