Pizza Express

Terrible. Really pathetic. Where do I begin?
Chose Pizza Express as they had sent me a birthday voucher for a free bottle of house wine or Prosecco. Popped in with 2 friends after work for a catch up and to take advantage of the free bubbles.
It was near empty with plenty of staff. We were sat at a half-​made table that needed a wipe.
Took a long time to be given menus then an even longer time for the drink order to be taken so we also quickly ordered food before being made to wait again. I know you’re probably thinking if it was near empty we should have flagged someone down but that’s my point — the staff were nowhere to be seen.
I ordered a goats cheese salad and paid extra for chicken — first it came out sans chicken, I sent it back and it arrived back sans goats cheese and with a peasly amount of chicken. Wtf?! You on a budget? The salad itself was a sad display of dried out ingredients — it tasted as good as it looked.
My friends had similar issues.
The best part? The free bubbles! I won’t be returning. Pizza Express — sort it out!

For being a chain, Pizza Express doesn’t do so bad for itself.
Their £10 lunch offer (
) is a reasonable value and grants you access to their vaunted dough balls (read: garlic butter dipping devices) and bruschetta (basically, a mini-​pizza sans cheese) starters and a variety of pizzas.
But then, you wouldn’t have access to the new ‘award winning’ Da Morire Romana pizza on the regular menu. With an ingredient list consisting of Gorgonzola D.O.P, mozzarella, caramelised leeks, artichoke, crispy pancetta, rosemary, and chilli oil… what’s not to love? Ask your server for some extra chilli oil to kick things up a notch, you’ll be happier for it.
Though Pizza Express doesn’t rank up there with the pizzas I’ve had in NYC and Chicago, it holds its own against the likes of Dominoes and Papa Johns. And at a roughly similar price point, that’s not so shabby!

After now having visited three Pizza Express locations, I may as well rename them Salad Express, as that’s all I ever eat here. (Or by that logic, Balls Express would be appropriate as well, but if you’re searching for ‘balls express’ on the internet, this probably isn’t what you’re craving…)
Moving on. The salads are, in fact, fantastic. Salade Niçoise was my go-​to fave the first two visits, but this time I ventured into the world of Bosco, which involved garlic mushrooms, baby mozzarella, avocado, roasted tomatoes, baby spinach and my face. To shake things up I added chicken on that bad boy. Forks down one of the best salads I’ve had in London.
Bonus: they didn’t mind when I got finicky about adding this and subtracting that, which is rare and refreshing. With these magical vouchers that seem to pop up from everywhere, it’s well worth it.