Everything half decent was full and with two hungry kids at 7pm on a Friday in Holborn we were faced with Tesco Express food in our hotel room or Pizza Express. We live in California and loathe chains but I must say, we were pleasantly surprised. The restaurant itself is quite beautiful, large, light and airy with attractive spot lighting and the menu with enough variety to satisfy most pizza lovers.
Service was typical of London these days with the impersonal central European staff rushing you along. I don't know whether it is language or just the lack of in-built customer attitudes that cause this but it made me realize just how good American service really is and how poor London service has become (we've been eating at all manner of expensive, middling and budget restaurants all week). I love the waitresses response to my request for a glass of red wine as she was once again rushing off from our table..."large or small?".
If it wasn't for the impersonal service and bland kids pasta, I would have given this place a 4. Gbp42 to feed and water all of us was great value and I think we would definitely come back again.
In terms of food, our boys had the kids menu, carbonara and bolognese and at gbp6.25, really good value - dough balls, salad, pasta or pizza and a good sized dessert and "bambinoccino" which was just a little cup of cappuccino type milk froth. We had a "romana" pizza and a salad. Why can you buy just a good honest large leafy salad in London with more than a small handful of green stuff?? This is a green and pleasant land after all.. Tasty rocket and mushroom but expensive at over gbp9. The pizza was delicious but the romano pizzas are thinner and wider than regular Pizza express pizzas (which are already quite thin) so it really was like eating a layer of cheese and tomato on paper. Delicious stuff but we did end up at Tesco Express after all to fill the gaps with bags of crisps and a (large bottle) of wine.... read more