Pizza Express

After much debate in ordering as my server didn’t speak English well, they still got my order wrong and then added the extra items I hadn’t asked for to the bill. The pizza itself had the toppings in the middle and nothing near the edges. Very disappointing.

I’ve always been a fan of pizza express, but these guys really came through for me last night. After having gotten severely lost on the way to a restaurant (thanks google maps…) we had exactly 30 minutes to eat before the london philharmonic show we had tickets to started. We were seated immediately, our server helped us pick the quickest options, brought our food and the check together within ten minutes, and was very understanding and friendly about the whole thing. We even made it to the show (across the street) with one minute to spare.
tldr: consistently good food, affordable, friendly employees :)

I HATE this branch of Pizza Express as it is always so packed, usually full of tourists and /​or families and it is very loud and all a bit too frantic and crazy! I’ve only managed to eat here on two occasions and they seem loath to take your booking if they are less than four of you.
In an excellent location as it’s right near the Southbank; BFI; National Theatre and Waterloo Station.
Disappointing.

This is an absolutely soulless outpost of the Pizza Express brand, and I have to say that as soon as I set foot in here, I was tempted to leave. Feels more like a school canteen than somewhere you’d pay to dine out at, and the service wasn’t much better.
I tend to avoid Pizza Express if I can help it as they’ve definitely gone downhill in the last 10 years or so, but I definitely won’t be coming back to this one in particular any time soon.

Pros: Good location for the National Theatre and I was seated quickly (9pm)
Cons: It’s very NOISY and the pizza was pretty mediocre.

:-(
It’s not often I give such a low rating for a restaurant when the meal was good. But after starting off at a (rather surprising) four stars, everything went from pretty good, to so bad we almost walked out without paying. Until I told my friend that was actually illegal. But that’s how bad the service was.
Everything started fine (once we moved ourselves from the table right by the toilets — it was a half empty GINORMOUS restaurant, was seat us there?) The waitress was rushed and not all that pleasant (yet she remembered to up sell whilst being brisk) and our food was great. The only reason we were here is because we had a nifty voucher. But then realised it was cheaper to just buy our own stuff. Well done Pizza Express.
I really really wanted strawberry ice cream. I have a craving for it sometimes. But half an hour (and one missed train) later, our order hadn’t been taken. We asked for the bill instead and watched time tick by. It was getting on for nine now, we arrived at seven. Time ticked by, we were brushed away by more than one waitress, and I very nearly lost my temper, but I was catching up with a friend and didn’t want to ruin our evening. At one point our waitress looked right at me, then walked off and never came back. We missed our next train too. And we never got to walk along the river and dance on the Southbank to the samba band I had walked past earlier.
Eventually, my friend asked to speak to the manager, and she was great. Polite friendly and apologetic. Their card machine had broken, so everything was being run through manually. I’m pretty understanding and wish someone would have told me that, but they couldn’t care less. The manager bought us desserts on the house, which were actually really nice, and she’s offered us a free main and a free drink if we choose to go back. I’m not sure I will. She treated us right, but the rest of the staff were nothing short of rude. I can count on one hand the amount of times I haven’t tipped on leaving a restaurant.
I never expect much from Pizza Express, but with service like that, I’m amazed the whole chain hasn’t folded. It’s deplorable.

Stuck in behind the BFI/​Royal National Theatre, the layout is akin to a soulless 3* hotel in some dodgy Spanish resort, otherwise it’s the Pizza Express standard experience