Located basically right under the Wheel of Liverpool on Kings Dock, this branch of Pizza Express to…read morethe eye looks like a really nice, modern branch and it is a branch I've wanted to visit for a while. Much to my surprise, I found out this store has been open for over eight years, with a full glass interior and overall being really modern, this surprised me to find out the store wasn't newer - however it seems the overall look and feel of this branch seemed to be one of the few good things about this Pizza Express store, a store I had wanted to visit for a while now, and with a promotion to get any pizza for £5 through my mobile phone provider, O2, I felt it was the perfect time to try this store during my few days spent in Liverpool.
The staff seemed a little eager at most aspects, which was both good and bad, it was good in the sense service was originally quick or in an "express" but bad in the sense that parts of my experience were rushed, the only part which took longer than I'd have liked was payment, someone come up to me with a card reader then vanished for no reason I could recall, with the store also being quiet on my visit, with no update, apology or excuse from the staff member.
An example of service being quicker than I'd have liked was the staff coming over to see how my pizza was, while I was still in the middle of cutting it, meaning I hadn't had the chance to taste it yet, but the first thing which sprung to mind was the amount of sauce on my pizza, it was a little sloppy to the point where the first piece just slid off the chopping board (they use these for gluten-free pizza orders) flat down onto the floor, no member of staff offered to clean this up during my visit making it possibly a safety hazard for both myself and the next customer.
I ordered the gluten-free Carbonara pizza after enjoying it at the Pizza Express in Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester and through a recommendation from my server as I was originally struggling to decide between that and the Ragu, I rather regret my decision now considering how it turned out.
The amount of sauce on the pizza was just too much, I had to scrape some of it off, making the base slightly soggy, gluten-free bases are already far from fantastic in your standard commercialised Italian, but this just made it even worse. I also had issues from my egg, where it was runny where it should be hard, and hard where it should be runny, with the yoke not being runny at all and the egg whites being slightly runny - this might not be a breakfast restauraunt with the eggs being a bonus on the pizza, as I recall this is only one of two pizzas alongside the Florentina to feature a fried egg in the middle, but I have had so much better in the past from other Pizza Express stores and even rivals such as Zizzi, so it should have been a lot better.
This store is a prime example of looks being deceiving, this store looks modern, exciting and bright, in a great central location in Liverpool city centre, right by the Wheel of Liverpool on Albert Dock, but sadly the food and service quality was really bad, to the point where I'm glad I had a coupon and only paid £5, which might seem good value for a pizza especially a gluten-free one, but I still can't help for a pizza of that poor quality which left me feeling sick for over an hours afterwards, even then I have been ripped off in an experiencce which puts me off Pizza Express as a whole.
