Zizzi

Food not worth the price. My pizza honestly tasted like a Grocery store one. Average service. Great location and nice place.
I’ve seen Zizzi and wanted to give it a try for a while… well I won’t come back anytime soon

Arriving late in the evening into Paddington Station, a group of six of us decided to try the restaurants nearby and opted on for Zizzi’s as it offered a menu with dietary needs, including gluten free based pizza. I had the chicken and mushroom pasta (pappardelle pollo funghi), which was lovely. The rest of my friends had pizzas, salad and calzone. Unfortunately, for a friend of mine who ordered gluten free pizza, became ill after having that pizza. I suspect there was contamination of gluten dough while making his.

Zizzi’s is always a reliable spot with good food. It is in the Little Venice area that is very nice. It’s close to tourist traps by paddington station but also away from all the bustle so it is a great alternative.

Normally I don’t think I’d bother reviewing a chain restaurant but I forgot how much I love zizzi’s
Their food is always so good! I had the nicest goats cheese and butternut squash salad and their pizzas are always delish
They also gave me a free main as its my birthday this week!
Would be 4* but had a grumpy waitress at this branch

I don’t know that I have been to a Zizzi before, but since we were headed in this direction to meet up with some friends, we popped in for dinner. I like the location and there is plenty of seating outside to enjoy the canal. Service was a bit spotty… a number of customers, including us stood at the door waiting to be seated, but didn’t see a sign or a staff member to assist. It also took quite awhile to get someone to take our order.
The menu isn’t huge and it seems to focus on the basics. To be fair, it reminds me of the menus from other large Italian chains. I ordered their new Salmone Broccoli while Mr. Snarky had the Crab Linguine (another dish that I had considered). We ordered the Italian Bread «Bucket» to start with. I say «bucket» because while it was a bucket, it was a small bucket. There were two pieces of Focaccia and another piece of bread. Needless to say, if there are more than two of you, you may want to order your own bread «bucket». They should really call it a bread cup.
Our dishes were ok, but nothing life changing. I usually use the word consistent when it comes to chain restaurants because you know what you are going to get. The Salmone Broccoli looked spectacular, although the salmon was brown from being fried. While I love crispy bits on fried fish, the fish was overcooked so it was a bit dry and there isn’t really a sauce on the plate to hide that. There was broccoli, sundried tomatoes, olives, capers, and sauteed potatoes. The one thing that didn’t really seem to go with the rest of the dish were the olives. I don’t think that I’ve had the type of olive that was used and to be fair, I don’t think I would have them again. It is a nice dish, not a hearty dish, but a light dish. Mr. Snarky had the Crab Linguine and it was a huge plate of pasta! Lots of little bits of crab with a bit of tomato and chili. I tasted and while I got a bit of crab and a bit of chili, it was a bit bland for me. Maybe a squeeze of lemon?!
We did have some dessert… neither of us had eaten since 11 a.m. (it was about 9:30 p.m.) so we justified it. I had the Tiramisu (I know, save your lectures) and Mr. Snarky had the Lemon Meringue Sundae. The Tiramisu is a large portion of dessert, in fact I only ate about half. It is ok, but not my favourite Tiramisu. Now, the Lemon Meringue Sundae, if you get a bit of each component, really tastes like a Lemon Meringue Pie. It was quite refreshing and a nice small portion. It was a nice dinner, service let it down, but food was consistent.

Food is terrible. They need to change the way they make their food. It’s a basic Italian menu, it’s simple food. It’s not hard to make! Yet they failed gloriously. Taste and texture: Wrong.

When I was a kid — a teenager, stupid and cocky — I used to have an expression that went like this: pizza is like sex. When it’s good, it’s great and when it’s bad, it’s still good.
Without commenting on the sex aspect, let me just state unequivocally that the fungi pizza I had at Zizzi recently has forever exposed the stupidity of that saying. There is such a thing as bad pizza. Pizza with no redeeming qualities. Pizza that you would desperately like to forget, but can’t. Every miserable bite haunts you like a careless step in a dog park.
My co-​worker and I didn’t actually intend on eating a Zizzi. But we were in between the lunch and dinner hours and the first three restaurants we tried were closed.
Lucky for us Zizzi was open. Not.
All of which is too bad because when we walked in, I felt optimistic that we had found a gem of a restaurant. The space is open and airy. The décor creative and appealing. It was only after reading on the Zizzi website that the restaurant is actually a chain with dozens of locations across the UK, that it occurred to me that the entire concept was probably put together by some restaurant marketing /​branding agency. So much for my romanticized idea of a small proprietor/​entrepreneur conceptualizing everything from his/​her heart.
We started out with the Italian Bread Bucket. To be honest, I don’t remember anything about it. For my entrée I had the fungi pizza, which we’ve already established is the worse pizza I’ve ever had in my life. I also had a Bistecca e Funghi Salad, which featured warm slices of steak and mushrooms mixed with salad, red onion, cucumber, tomato and white balsamic dressing. I found the steak to be tough and bland. My co-​worker had the Ravioli Di Capra (ravioli with goat cheese and spinach in a tomato sauce) and while he ate the entire serving, he didn’t really have anything kind to say about it.
The service was adequate. I guess. At one point I ordered a second cider and while it never arrived it nevertheless appeared on my bill. That’s not the end of the world — the server took it off the bill without any fuss. Still, it was just one more thing to be unimpressed about.
It’s amazing to me that Zizzi has found enough success (or maybe just investment capital) to expand across the UK. Certainly there has to be better Italian restaurants in every neighborhood that this chain is located. That is, after all, a very low bar.

Headline: Great Pasta and Pizza
Visiting London and going out with a client, we pick a nice Italian place. The restaurant is actually a pain to get to — the taxi can’t drop you off there. Your best bet is to get to Paddington and walk back along the canal.
That being said, the concierge at the Hilton booked us a table. We started with garlic bread — pizza dough with garlic and oil on top done in the pizza oven, which was a great starter. I had the pesce risotto — nice large shrimp and a very flavorful sauce, with the risotto being toothsome, just how I like it. For dessert, their date and fig pudding was warm and very tasty. The waiter was personable and did not intrude when it was obvious we wanted time to talk.
A great restaurant and highly recommended.

It’s been a while since i visited Zizzi, but a girls night out took us to this branch, near to Paddington station. Arriving at around 9pm on a cold, dark night it was a relief. The restaurant is quite big and a little echo-​y, but manages to feel warm and welcoming despite this. The food was quite nice, and we all enjoyed our respective meals. My goats cheese ravioli were tasty, as was the tomato sauce they came in, but sadly there was a little too much water/​oil in the dish initially, which I had to siphon off to avoid it drowning out the flavours somewhat. I also tasted some of my friend’s pizza, which was topped with spicy meat. The topping was nice but the base was a little doughy and tasteless. Service was initially good, although it took us rather a long time to be given a bill once we’d decided against dessert. Still, whilst I wouldn’t go out of my way to visit, I wouldn’t turn down a repeat trip.

Zizzi, despite being a chain, a very capable of knocking up some decent food. And given that they’re almost always offering a deal, and even better if you have a taste card, it’s great value too.
This branch sits on the canal on the way to Little Venice, and it’s rarely very busy — a bonus if you turn up with a group of people like we did. it’s well decked out and the staff were on form. Being part of a chain means that all the above could be hit and miss between different branches, and even the day you visit. All good here though.
I enjoyed their calzone and the almond, fig and pistachio tart I had to finish was actually very, very good.
Well played Zizzi.

I have to admit, I have not read the greatest reviews for Zizzi in general, however, due to limitations, we ended up in Zizzi near Paddington station on August Bank Holiday.
The service was awful. My guess is that this was caused by only one server being on staff. She was overwhelmed and ad at least a dozen tables.
We ordered tap water and the couple friend that we were with ordered bottled water. The server brought 4 glasses and their bottle of water. I’m not sure what she was expecting and it left us in an awkward position at the table as my husband and I did not have any water and we weren’t expecting our couple friend to share their bottle of water. So, we had to ask her again for a pitcher of tap water.
I ordered the Sophia pizza (I did not get it «rustica») and it was gigantic. I took half of it home. The pizza was delicious. I definitely would order it again. The other three people at the table ordered various pasta dishes. No one mentioned if they were totally in love with their dish or if it was just OK, so I am not able to add any advice there.
In general, service here just isn’t what it is in The States and I need to get used to that. I get frustrated when my bill is not delivered to my table within 5 minutes of them clearing the table. It took upwards of an hour for us to flag down the server to bring our bill and then we had to flag her down again to pick it up after we reviewed it and laid down the credit card. It was incredibly annoying, especially since we had spent the entire day at the Notting Hill Carnival and just wanted to get something quick to eat and get home and sit on the couch.

Das Motto: One cannot think well, sleep well, live well if one has not dined well trifft hier voll zu.
Zwar nicht ganz billig ;-) aber London eben,

My boyfriend took me here while I was in London. We ordered Trentino, which is according to their menu, «Baked buffalo mozzarella, plum tomatoes and Grana Padana with fresh rocket and cured speck added as the finale.»
The best pizza I’ve ever had! Nice location and friendly service. Too bad that I was quite full and I couldn’t try their desserts…
I would love to go back there :)

Nice position ongside the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal. Eaten there once and it was generally good, and good value.

pizzas are ok. I prefer pizza express. pasta choice is good. the ventilation is awfull though and you will leave the restaurant with the smell of cooked oil on your clothes. not good at all and for this reason I won’t go back.

I’m always faintly surprised by this area near Paddington along the canal. It is quite pleasant.
Zizzi is a chain Italian restaurant owned by another chain Italian resturant ‘Ask’. They generally do quite nice Italian-​y food in a slightly fancy but casual way.
What’s particularly nice about this canal side branch, is, unsurprisingly, the canal side-​ness. It has large glass windows which allow for quite a nice setting. Also, you can see the huge traditional wood fire burning in the open plan kitchen, which is always a nice touch.
The service is ok, certainly nothing to write home about. I find the uniform of jeans and a polo shirt a bit too informal for my tastes.
The food was very tasty though, but came in at around £8-£10 a main, which isn’t going to break the bank, but also won’t do your purse any favours.