Fresh to Stirling, Pizza Express is located just outside the Thistles Centre in Central Stirling. With a classy exterior and outdoor seating area, the interior is just as chic with luxury picnic style decor right down to the bright retro plastic tableware. This was my first experience of Pizza Experience and whilst the view from the huge glass windows wasn't as striking as I'm sure branches of bigger cities like Glasgow or Edinburgh are, I was happy to sit back and people watch whilst sampling the pizza menu.
We choose to go on a Wednesday to take advantage of the 2 for 1 pizza offer for Orange customers which included 2 for 1 on doughballs. So, in terms of value, lunch was really affordable.
As I said, I really loved the bright colour scheme and the summer feel of the restaurant. I loved the plastic vibrant glasses but I did notice that they didn't look the cleanest. The doughballs were nice but the garlic butter was a little heavy. It felt like it could have done with another flavour other than garlic since it was just a little bit bland. I had used my cutlery for the starters so it would have been nice to get some clean cutlery for the pizzas. (Which weren't pre-cut.)
The pizzas were decent. Though I didn't feel like they were anything special, what particularly threw me was what happened half way through our meal. A waitress tripped over in the middle of the restaurant. She was obviously distressed after what had happened. After this, there seemed to be a few problems back in the kitchen. We then heard the restaurant manager shout 'What is actually wrong with this restaurant?' This was audible across the restaurant and made for an uncomfortable dining environment from then on. It didn't feel professional in the least and I even noticed that she had been doing her paperwork, in huge piles, on one of the restaurant tables. This took away from the atmosphere of the restaurant completely.
Really unprofessional. - Beyond the hiccups that normally occur in the first few weeks of a restaurant opening. It would have been a one star from me but the extra star is for the waitress who couldn't have been more apologetic and lovely despite the fact that she was clearly upset after her fall. A disappointing lunch. read more