Pizza Express

This is my first visit at this branch and I must say the interior of this place is very nice and so is the atmosphere. The food is as always very nice for being a chain restaurant and it’s absolutely worth the money.
Unfortunately the service wasn’t the best today. It’s usually amazing with friendly waiting staff and welcoming hosts but today was clearly a disappointment. There were many tables available but we were offered the one in the corner next to the entrance with literally no distance from other tables what so ever. I asked to get another table with SOME privacy.
When we asked to pay, we realised we had a voucher that’s about to expire! The waitress pulled up with the WORST service smile of all times and it was more painful to see it than if she wouldn’t have smiled at all. She got her manager who gave us the new bill, and with not a single smile or a loud thank you he walked away with our money (even though we tipped).
Pros: good food for a valuable price
Cons: service staff need to learn how to be polite

This place has had a nice re-​furb, and gives me interior décor envy whenever I visit. It’s in a lovely spot in the centre of town and is particularly nice on a sunny day.
However, the service really wasn’t up to much on my most recent visit. I don’t want to be too harsh to them given the I was in a large group of 10 people, but I still didn’t think this excused a 1hr 15min wait for main courses, particularly considering our waiter’s attitude.
While he was friendly and pleasant enough, the waiter annoyed me by constantly trying to encourage me to drink, while seeming to do everything in his power to delay taking our order. He twice gave us time to ‘think about it’ despite us having decided before we arrived what we wanted, and left me quite hungry and grumpy in that way that only a crash of low-​blood sugar will provoke. I suspect he knew there was a queue and just wanted to keep us happy, but this didn’t really wash.
I was not drinking for the simple reason of wanting to ‘save myself’ for an evening event, but for all he knew I could have been pregnant or off the booze for some other reason. I did not appreciate the attempts to distract me from the fact that we’d waited over an hour by constant attempts at ‘top ups’.
A little honesty would have gone a long way here: we have a fairly long delay in the kitchen vs. please spend an hour drinking while I put you off making your order.
Not impressed!

Generally I think the Pizza Express chain is great. It’s the place you go to for good quality, no nonsense food with polite and friendly staff. It’s hard for me to say anything bad about it as a chain so this review is about my experience to this particular restaurant recently.
Unfortunately on this occasion I was a little disappointed… However, I don’t think it was entirely the fault of Pizza Express.
We got seated upstairs next to a large shouting group of about 30 people who were singing and screaming and so on. I usually don’t have a problem with this because I’m usually involved, but it was impossible to have a conversation or enjoy the company of the people I was with.
The second minus point was the toilets… they were FREEZING! Oh my lord were they cold! As a guy I was lucky that I don’t have to sit down on those toilet seats because I think if I had my arse would have frozen stuck to it!
By the way the best thing on their menu is the Pollo Ad Astra Romana with extra Peperoni. Man it’s good.

I’m proud to say that I had never been to a Pizza Express before (until last night). And I wasn’t expecting much, to be honest.
But I have to say, I had a great meal! Obviously I was skeptical about what I’d be able to eat here (no lactose, no egg, etc etc etc), but the waiter was super helpful and friendly and added extra goat cheese to my non-​dairy pizza. YUM.
It was a packed house… weird for a Wednesday night, but maybe I’m sheltered in my little Barnes bubble. But we never felt as though we were waiting for ages. The wine was good enough, my pizza was awesome, and we left satisfied and content.
I won’t turn my nose up to this chain quite yet.