Pizza Express

Shopping trip to St. Albans and couldn’t decide between Prezzo and Pizza Express. As I’d been to Prezzo just last week, opted for Pizza Express but wish I hadn’t! We arrived at midday and it wasn’t busy. Service was not good — very slow. From where I was sitting, I was able to observe the «chef» who wasn’t throwing the pizza dough, just rolling them and stretching them by hand. I’d always been given to understand that all Pizza Express pizzas were prepared in the traditional Italian way — not at this restaurant though!
The other thing I observed was that the toppings were put onto the pizzas by hand and the chef did not wear gloves. I could not see, from the angle at which I was sitting, whether he was washing his hands after/​before each pizza preparation. My concern was that, as a vegetarian, I wouldn’t want him preparing someone else’s pizza with prosciutto, chicken, pepperoni, etc., and then making my pizza straight after without washing his hands in between.
The food was ok although I felt that the pizza base could’ve been better!

We came here a couple weeks ago (February 2015) for Mom’s birthday. It used to be one of my favourite places to eat, but I haven’t been here since maybe 2007-​08.
Mom played it safe with garlic bread and a Margarita pizza, while I decided to go for bruschetta and an American pizza Romana, neither of which I’d tried. The bruschetta was delicious, and quite different to what I was expecting — the base was a standard garlic bread, topped with fresh tomato, onion, basil, olive oil and freshly-​made pesto. I’m hit-​and-​miss with pesto, but this was wonderful. The pizza was similarly excellent — a generous helping of slightly sweet pepperoni on top of a delightfully thin, crispy base, with marinara sauce and plenty of mozzarella. I was so busy eating I forgot to photograph it. I didn’t taste mom’s food, but she definitely enjoyed it (though she always does).
We splurged on dessert — chocolate cake for mom, panna cotta for me — which I found reasonably good, though a little sweet for my tastes. That isn’t a slur against the restaurant though — trying a new dessert is always risky for me, as I’m not particularly into sweets, and I should have gone with the lemon sorbet. The cake (which I tasted) was rich, moist and delicious.
Service was faultless, and I’m surprised that other Unilocalers have had bad experiences. We were here on a Sunday at around 5pm, and it was reasonably busy, but Gerard, our waiter, was professional, efficient and friendly. The restaurant has also been beautifully redecorated since I was here last, and we found the ambiance both peaceful and welcoming. All in all it was one of the best meals we’ve had out in a while (and we eat out a fair amount).
Edited 25/​06/​2015 — I am delighted to see that Pizza Express now do a gluten-​free pizza. As someone recently diagnosed with coeliac disease, finding pizza that I can eat is almost impossible, let alone finding one that tastes good. At this point they only offer gluten-​free as a standard base (not a Romana), and they don’t yet do gluten-​free garlic bread, bruschetta or dough balls, but those things may come in time. The gluten-​free pizza was very tasty, and I highly recommend it to anyone.

Meh, given that there is so much choice in St Albans in such a short distance I’m not sure I’d bother with this Pizza Express again :(
The service was cheery enough but wasn’t exceptional. The few staff were either busy bringing out food or standing around talking at the bar when they could have been clearing tables or getting the bill for customers, as soon as you actually wanted to order something or pay, everyone is busy again.
Sorry St Albans PE, your food is ok but I’d much rather go to Jamie’s or Zizzi and experience some decent service.

Only 1 star because you can’t give zero. This place is useless. On a number of occasions we had cause to complain about lack of service and no staff at this branch. We decided to start using Harpenden which is great. Today we walked into town and thought as we had no car we’d try St Albans again. Waiting at the front of the queue we are told only 2 staff on and will be slow service. At least they warned us in time to choose somewhere else to eat. This place should be avoided at all costs!

So its a pizza express, you know what you are going to get. It’s half the reason I go there.
I will not ever ever ever return to this pizza express again. The service was absolutely diabolical. When we arrived the stand in manager said they were only seating those who had booked. (At Sunday Lunchtime). This caused a near riot, myself included. They had major staffing issues.
Then they made us rush in our order. Fine, we did. The children’s pasta was forgotten and we were lied to about it being on the way! A pizza wasn’t made. The pizzas that were made were all slightly burned around the crusts.
The kids icecreams were served in cappucino cups, not sundae glasses. We repeatedly had to ask for the desserts.
It took about 20 minutes for anyone to come and take our money for the bill.
If you fancy pizza in St. Albans, try Zizzi or Prezzo.