I admit, I discovered Zizzi because Las Iguanas next door was fully-booked. I am, however, quite glad that I did. Zizzi is a mid-range Italian restaurant tucked just behind the Corn Exchange. The first thing that strikes you as you walk in is an atmosphere of gentle resplendence. While not too over the top, it quietly lets you know that a lot of time and thought has gone into the slightly plush, modern furnishings. My favourite part of all that is the chopped wood adorning one of the walls. It doesn't have even the ghost of an appearance of practicality, but it does a fine old job of hinting that the place has a rustic touch, despite its otherwise contemporary feel. The menu offers what you'd expect from an Italian - plenty of pasta, plenty of pizza, all cooked well from the reassuringly-open kitchen. Touches such as presenting the garlic bread on what looks a lot like a smoothed cross-section of a small tree make you feel well looked after (although the desserts, which I didn't try, looked a bit on the fiddly side). One of the striking things about Zizzi is how young the crowd in there seems to be. It's not something you particularly expect from a restaurant outside a student area (restaurants mostly denying any age bias), but I suppose the proximity to Call Lane and the lively atmosphere draws all the twenty-somethings to the place. The young, friendly staff certainly helps, too. Price-wise there are cheaper places to eat, but not by much. Mains typically cost around £10. Zizzi is worth taking a look, even if Las Iguanas has tables going spare! read more

Went with friends visiting Leeds, at their request last night. A table had been booked so we were seated quickly & there was no queue however I wasn't really pleased to be sat in the very squashed corner which was quite chilly also! The place was busy-ish which was surprising for a Tuesday but there was also plenty of other tables we could have had. The service wasn't slow as such but it wasn't exactly quick either and the waitress looked most put out that we asked to order the food when she clearly only wanted to take our drinks orders! And she asked if we wanted red or white Pinot Grigio!!! (bit of staff training needed here on knowledge of the menu!) The bread and olive starter was 'average' really and again, took a bit longer than we liked to be served for something so simple. We had a bit of a trauma after this with my friends dog so they had to leave and the Restaurant seemed quite accommodating when we asked for our food to go. This took 40 minutes to arrange though which was a total joke as prior to the request to do this we had been sat with the starter finished for 15 minutes! Unfortunately, after the 5 minute taxi journey from Zizzi to Clarence dock, we opened the food to not only discover it was cold, but 2 of the dishes provided were not what we ordered. Having already paid the £92 bill and having left the restaurant, we couldn't have gone back to complain but believe me- I won't be going back! I have dined in other Zizzi locations before and have never been blown away by the food but it on this occasion I'm pretty disgusted that they seem to been slipping from even the most standard of standards! They need top relying on the 'Brand' reputation and actually make an effort both to provide the service and food that should be 2nd nature. It's not exactly cheap so I would expect better. read more

I found it pretty hard to pull two stars out for Zizzi for the simple reason that it really really shouldn't be this hard to make very simple food taste so utterly meh. So one star for a nice clean restaurant in a good location and for the friendly, if rather distracted, staff and one for the tiramisu- which was okay. The only reason Zizzi gets a two-er is because although the food was epically dull the entire experience was not completely dire and I reserve my one-ers for truly dreadful episodes in the life of Nommy-Lina. When Ade's mother turned her nose up at Kendell's Bistro for a birthday meal my heart sank. It sank even further when she announced she wanted Italian (again, what is it with the older lady and bland Italian food??!)...but when she wanted us to book Zizzi I admit my heart slid in a sad smear down my left leg and nestled in defeat in a small bloody pool in my shoe. Not only bland Italian, but bland chain restaurant Italian. *le sigh* Ever the optimist however I resigned to make the best of it, despite Italian being my least favourite cuisine and having cunningly circumvented a starter (which all sounded terribly dreary) I opted for bauletti di ricotta e limone. It looked so depressing, off cream pasta parcels slowly losing the will to live in a watery pool of what smelled exactly like Jiff Lemon..and the taste? Well apparently it was meant to be ricotta and gran padano. I got mashed potato in Jiff, with a very weird artificial after burn on the palate. That's it. Potato in Jiff. Not quite as exotic as I'd hoped. Ade didn't seem to be faring much better as I watched him take a bite of his calzone pollo spinaci pizza, chew, stop chewing, gaze off into the middle distance with a slump of the shoulders and promptly reach over the table to drown the thing in chilli oil. I did have a taste myself and it tasted of....cheese and erm.......er......yeah, you get the idea. Having said that it tasted better than mashed potato in Jiff. Ade's mum had spicy seafood pasta that just came in a sad pile in a bowl and gave no enticing aromas whatsoever. As I stabbed my Jiff parcels I was at least glad I'd not plumbed for sad seafood and given the amount of pasta she left and the pile of hard looking prawns that ended up on the side of her bowl I'm going to guess the earth didn't move....but you can't ask mums things like that on their birthday. For desert I picked the classic staple of tiramisu. It tasted very mass produced, again with a slightly chemical after taste but it was at least moist and had a strong coffee flavour. I couldn't get even the slightest hint of Marsala which is always a huge disappointment. I LOVE Marsala I do. Ade's torta cioccolata was firm but bland and there again was that weird artificial aftertaste. Are these things pumped with preservative and kept in the freezer? It just didn't taste clean and fresh at all. Ade's mum had some melted chocolate bun thing which looked plain and simple but she seemed to enjoy it. The frascati was utterly immemorable. So there you go. I would say something about it but I quite literally cannot remember any discernable flavour and recall it tasting very very watery. In conclusion then this is the perfect restaurant. For your gran. Or your mum if her palate is still very firmly in the 1970's approach to Italian cooking. God bless Ade's mum, I do love her, but if she insists on another Italian next year after the bellyflops of Zizzi for her birthday and Arias for Mother's Day then I may have to take her outside and have a very stern word with her. I would compare Zizzi's cuisine with eating the bread you've been saving for the ducks since last week. Sure it's 'food' but that doesn't mean you will enjoy eating it. read more

I recently celebrated my birthday, and decided Italian would be a good crowd-pleaser (plus I love it) so I went for Zizzi. It's a nice atmosphere in there - trendy but somehow still rustic, and I love the food. They accepted my booking for 20 people, and were fine with me ringing twice to change it to 22, then to 18 (you know how it is....) When we arrived our waitress (Charlotte) immediately snapped into action, telling me to ask her if we needed anything at all throughout the night. She took all our drinks and food orders really quickly, was super-friendly, and didn't even raise an eyebrow when confronted with dithering or last-minute additions and changes. The food came quickly and was yummy as usual - it's the usual standard chain Italian, but there's nothing wrong with that. There's loads of choice, but I always get calzone at Zizzi, which is delicious. A lot of dough - but man, I love their pizza dough. Everyone seemed happy with their food, except for my friend who got the squid ink pasta which came in a pretty small portion! A few of us got desserts too - I tried my friend's sorbet and almost wished I'd got that instead of my melting choc dessert... not quite though, cos that was also delicious! And they dimmed the lights and brought it out to me with a little candle - cute! Basically, Zizzi handled my massive table booking with ease and were awesome throughout. I had a great stress-free meal: specially big shout out to Charlotte for being so brilliant! read more

Took my mother (at her request) for her birthday and my girlfriend. A nice looking place and the service was adequate but a little slow. The food however was quite tasteless, bauletti di ricotta e limone - supposedly 'egg pasta filled with ricotta and grana padano cheese, served with spinach, lemon zest and butter' that tasted rather of mashed potato ravioli in a watery yellow sauce, an insipid calzone pollo spinaci pizza tasting only of the dough and the little bits of ham on top with no sign of the spinach or chicken apart from a white goo filling - I had to resort to covering it in chilli oil to give any flavour at all. My mother had some seafood pasta that looked ok, but as I dont like seafood I cant really comment. For dessert my torta cioccolata seemed to comprise of wax and margarine, flavoured with the cheapest chocolate flavouring possible, tiramisu was nice but lacking on coffee flavour and the chocolate melt looked for all like a shop bought item. We had a particularly uninspiring bottle of frascati lazio - 'lazio' being the operative word as any sort of taste lasted all of a few seconds before leaving a vaguely alcoholic mouthful of nothing at all really. In all I would avoid this soulless chain at all costs until they discover how to make their food actually taste of something. Italian food is not complicated and given good ingredients can be lovely to eat - Zizzi seem to have sucked the marrow right out of their food tho leaving just cardboard pizzas, bland beige pasta dishes, cheap chocolate desserts and unfulfilling wine. Methinks not indeed. read more

First off, I like Italian food. Second off, I actually like Zizzi. Especially the one in The Light. Finally, I literally (yes, literally) hate this Zizzi. Over the years I've been in 5 or 6 times and never... Yes, never... Had what I would describe as a good meal, with good service, and without someone having to send something back because it was a) wrong, b) undercooked, c) tasted foul, d) any combination of the above. And this is over 4 years or so. It seems like the place must be jinxed or something because the likelihood of them having the same staff over that time seems low to me. Anyway, I could go on about food quality, rude waiters, poor drinks but I'm not going to. Instead I'm just going to say go across town to The Lights Zizzi restaurant. Because it's just better. In every respect. Why two stars though? I actually had the lasagne once and it didn't totally suck. But more importantly they take vouchers which The Light restaurant don't. Which might explain the poor quality everything. Maybe. Maybe they just need to get rid of the vouchers? Go to The Light. Or Carluccio's if you actually want brilliant pasta in Leeds centre. read more

Hmm. I'm in two minds about what to write about Zizzi. The very first time we went was to celebrate my graduation, and more importantly, as somewhere to get out of the pouring rain because the place we were originally going to go to had shut down. We were welcomed with open arms, umbrellas taken away to be dried and seated at a large table, given menus and left to it. Service was very attentive, it was very quiet for a Friday night too. The food was lovely and they were very accommodating to all of us, even my fussy grandmother who insisted on a starter as her main course. All in all, we had a lovely time. But then I decided I'd take my boyfriend to celebrate his 25th birthday. Armed with a money off voucher, we went duly in and waited. And waited. And waited some more. We stood there for a good 10 minutes and were completely ignored. It wasn't busy by any means, there were plenty of staff on - several of whom had glanced over at us standing in the doorway, yet carried on walking round in circles. Unimpressed, we left and went next door to Las Iguanas. Even my complaint email to their head office was completely ignored. Safe to say, we were very dubious to return. We did go back, my dad had come to visit and we had a 2 courses for a tenner voucher to use. Service again, was pleasant. It was slightly busier this time. Food was lovely too but I can't say it's helped to get rid of that one bad experience. read more

Ok, so I'm a bit cynical about all the neat, shiny new places popping up in this area and see it as part of the gentrification of Leeds, pushing other businesses to the edges. A few years ago the units in this area were boarded up but fairly rapidly bars, restaurants and even a gym were installed near to the Corn Exchange. Zizzi's is part of this. It is a chain Italian restaurant that is more up market than Pizza Express in terms of food quality and price. It is still a chain and no matter how much effort they put into the decor, you know that if you go to one in another town there will be the same really genuine appearing wall of chopped wood there too. Sorry if I just shattered anyone's illusions. Aside from this the food is good. The pizzas are great and cooked in an open kitchen so you can see the dough bases being tossed in the air! I had a pizza that folds over and has all the topping inside rather than on top. This was rather novel and very tasty! read more

As with most Zizzi restaurants around the country, the food served here is usually very good. Its standard Italian fare, but the ingrediants used are fresh and quality. Prices are reasonable, aside from desserts which are really over-priced (£4.95 for a tiny piece of chocolate cake?) and some wines are expensive for what they are (£16 for a bof standard chianti in a nice wicker flask for example) On the positive side, its one of those restaurants which always seems to have a good atmosphere, and its usually lively, especially at weekends. Unlike in most places, service doesnt suffer that much when its crazy busy either, which is a good thing. Its nice too, to be able to look into the open plan kitchen and watch the chefs at work, even if occasionally the language can be a bit 'colourful' On the whole, I'd recommend this place - we've been a few times and will almost certainly go again. read more

I went here with the family not too long ago to celebrate my degree, the food was really good and you could tell it was freshly made. I am a veggie so Italians are always up my street, but the rustica primavera was really good,and so was the sobet (even if i am on a diet, its healthy right? its practically water!) read more

If you like your pasta and pizza places then you'll be ok with this place. It has all your usual type stuff you get in Italians and you get a good size portion. Its not overly expensive and it has a good atmosphere when its busy. read more

The welcome is always extremely good at Zizzi's. The food is amazing - pasta is always perfectly cooked and tastes wonderful. The italian breads as a starter is delicious. I have eaten there many times and never been disappointed! So I would heartily recommend it! read more

Zizzi is a lovely italian restaurant. This one in Leeds is not the only one, they have other restaurants acoss the UK. They sell a great range of pizzas, pastas, salads etc. The restaurant is quite modern and has a nice atmosphere. read more

I visited Zizzi's not long after it opened and the food was excellant but on my last 2 visits was very disappointing. The second time was with a girlfriend to which I had recommended. The waiter got the order mixed up, brought her a bottle of wine instead of a glass and charged us for a bottle on the bill plus the food was very average. The waiter was very apologetic and got the bill changed straight away. Not to be put off (anyone can have a bad night) I tried it again. Oh Dear !! On this occassion I returned the food it tasted so bad. We did have a 2 for 1 coupon so only ended up paying for our drinks. Its a shame cos the decor is really nice and the candles make it very intimate but I won't be trying it a fourth time. read more

i prefer this place to your other italian chains like pizza express, get yourself online as they have toofers at the mo. the staff are friendly enough and the food is a decent standard for what you pay, the decor is nice too and its right in town next to the corn exchange which is great for goin somewhere after/before read more

Shocking service......to cut a very very long story short, waited 45 mins for our mains which were then taken to the wrong table. When the table complainted it wasnt the right food (and i noticed what had happened and told a waitress) they picked up the food from there table and transfered it to ours.......after they had started to put pepper on and eating it!!! I complainted so they made me a fresh. Food was very tasty but meal was spoilt as i was annoyed by what had happened and the staff were more bothered about telling me it wasnt there fault. To say sorry the fetched 2 glasses of wine to our table.........hillarious.........i am 6 months pregnant and VERY visably pregnant!! Then they got the bill wrong and took nearly 15 mins for them to take payment. I wish i had just walked out without paying!!! Shocking, dont go! read more