A short walk away from Manchester Oxford Road Station and St Peter's Square, this Pizza Express store is probably their best out of the half a dozen or so they have in the city centre of Manchester, yet it is also surprisingly the quietest compared to locations in the Corn Exchange, on Peter Street and in Piccadilly Gardens.
Inside, they had ample seating on ground level and then up a few steps where they have more seating and an open kitchen, they do regularly have discounts going on here too from Sunday - Thursday including the Tastecard 241 offer as well as a regular 25% off if you register online or a 30% off student discount through TOTUM, you virtually never have to pay full price as long as you don't visit on a Friday or Saturday.
The staff seemed really friendly here, even though there were five not including those in the kitchen to one customer, they did seem friendly and they didn't slack off, they tried to keep themselves occupied which I'm sure will keep the management proud as they were earning their paycheck. A staff member even offered to cut up my pizza for me, which I thought was showcasing excellent service as it can be a little hard to cut without messing the pizza up, especially on a blackboard.
My food came pretty quickly and the pizza was good, while I think it could have had a little more cheese as the pizza was bare in some (yet small parts), I felt it was seasoned well and the chicken was pretty good quality with cajun spices and spicy peppers, the one flaw was with the base which I found to be a little wet and too thin, but sadly gluten free pizza bases are pretty crappy anyway outside of Rome, so considering that the pizza was still pretty good.
Fast service with nice staff, great quality toppings and ease of saving money and never having to pay full price Sunday-Thursday are some of the highlights of this place, perhaps the forgotten about but a better branch of Pizza Express in the city. They do need to try and work on their gluten-free pizza base though and perhaps improving the temperature of their tap water as it wasn't fully cold. 4* read more