Pizza Express

Normally I Like Pizza Express. They’re a decent pizza chain that caters to the gluten free market. They have a big menu with plenty of options both pizza, pasta and salads. I came to this Pizza Express looking for a quick meal and while I did get a quick meal I was very disappointed with the overall experience.
Firstly we were seated then ignored not even brought a menu for at least five minutes while the waiter stood around day dreaming. In fact the service over all wasn’t great, while we weren’t forgotten about we were treated more like an inconvenience. The waiter even tried to pressure us into ordering our food before we were ready. Eventually we ordered and managed to entirely confuse the waiter.
We were ordering four pizzas, three of which we requested had gluten free. We also requested a few other changes such as pesto base instead of tomato, no olives etc. None of these changes were made and one of the three pizzas that was supposed to be gluten free wasn’t. Luckily it was a member of the party who isn’t gluten intolerant. If it had been me who had wound up with a gluten filled dessert it wouldn’t have been good. .at all.
The pizzss were really good which was the saving grace but the other bumps in the road left me feeling quite unimpressed.

Went because it was nearby and accepts Tastecard. Good selection of authentic pizza. Very friendly staff. Limited beer selection but the Italian beer recommended by our waiter was excellent. We’ll be back.

Eine Schnellrestaurant Kette, die sich sehen lassen kann.
Die Pizzen sind sehr lecker und die Auswahl ist groß.
Leider ist das Ambiente nicht so schön, aber alles in allem kann man dort gut etwas essen.
Preise sind moderat.
Typ: Hausgemachte Limonade probieren!!!

Warning: this is more of a confession than a review — a catharsis of sorts.
I came to Pizza Express tonight. I feel like a dirty whore.
(Can I say that word? I use it ironically and to extend a metaphor I started in another review, look up Sartori for more details.)
Anyway sometimes needs must. Oh, and I was sent a voucher.
I hate vouchers. I dislike special offers. I really cannot stand Pizza Express. God knows why I signed up for the mailing list. Or did someone do that to me as a joke?
I would never inflict the use of a voucher on a meal out with a friend; tonight I dined alone, and sat at a table with a tacky pink Gerbera presumably left over from last night’s Valentine’s festivities (how wonderful for me — I love others’ sloppy seconds), and presumably dyed that colour. (God doesn’t make pink Gerbera as far as I know.)
Right, well with that confession out of the way, I presume I must say something useful.
This branch served the standard mediocre food one might expect, greasy over-​salted pizza that I could make better myself, (this was their flagship Sloppy Giuseppe with a Romana base — impossible to eat with the useless blunt knives they issue you). I know people don’t dine out to have food that they can’t cook at home, people have other reasons like ‘not doing the washing up’ etc. But for me, I like there to be some modicum of ceremony to a meal, however humble.
Prior to this was a horrid bruschetta (if you can call it bruschetta) named ‘Bruschetta Piccante’ which was selected from a menu of different bruschetta. Given the ready-​made-​meal feel of this dish, which tasted like frozen food heated up, I can only assume they are operating the same standard ruse that many fast food outlets do whereby they have one dish with the option of 5 different toppings, and fraudulently call it 5 dishes. Anyway, instead if coming out on a plate, this one came out served on a woefully undersized black polycarbonate board with a miserable pizza cutter you have to make use of yourself in the minuscule amount of space left on the aforementioned board. It was like a puzzle for the hungry: how to cut the teeny tiny bruschetta on an even teenier plastic chopping board. Yay, a game! Who said eating was dull? When I serve pizza to friends at my house, I usually have the sense of hospitality to cut it for them myself. But hey ho, this is presumably the ‘authentic Italian experience’ no doubt.
To finish the experience off I ordered a single espresso (this was tantamount to self harm as I can’t even buy espresso from Costa I am such a coffee snob) which I knew would taste like burnt rubber, plus two scoops of vastly overpriced vanilla ice cream (approximately the same price as an entire pot of Haagen Dasz except with nothing like the quality of taste) with which to create my own affogato (the chef refused to pour the coffee on the ice cream himself as clearly affogato is not on the menu). I’d like to say the coffee wasn’t as bad as all that; but it was.
All throughout my dinner there was a young couple opposite making conversation that was infinitely less interesting than the voices in my head, an old couple adjacent who were becoming increasingly irate with each other throughout the evening talking about the nitty gritty of their trust funds, and two tables down a horrid spoilt little brat expressing his dissatisfaction at the world, his lesbian parents, and the restaurant itself. (On all three counts, I probably agreed, except I wouldn’t have gone about expressing it quite in the way he did. Gah… kids.) The menu was as expected: covered with stains and food fingermarks.
It was almost two years ago I last vowed I would never visit Pizza Express ever again in my life, so I thought it about time I should renew these vows.
On the plus side I should say my S. Pellegrino was served in a clean glass. Bonus! Oh and this Pizza Express is spacious, and the waiting staff are polite and attentive. Hence I felt it horribly unfair to give one star. One star must be reserved for when food is bad and waiters are exceptionally rude. Here they were nice. That is at least something.
Also, calling this the ‘West Kensington’ branch is a huge misnomer. It’s Shepherd’s Bush. If you know the area, you will understand the point I am making in distinguishing the difference. Walking the streets is the difference between smiling families with dogs and good manners, and dodging dog foul on the pavements whilst trying not to get stabbed.
Thanks for reading.
ETA: In a cruel and ironic twist of fate, the above review was written on my iPhone at the end of my meal at the restaurant: I ran the battery completely down, forgetting that I required my phone to redeem my voucher. Therefore of course I paid the full price for this meal, this is because the negative-​review-​gods were looking down on me with an upset face. To be honest, the reduced AND the full price were both on a matter of principle way too high, so it

From a parent’s perspective, this Pizza Express is quite family friendly. The staff are very helpful, being aware that it’s not a good idea to put cutlery and breakable dishes near a two year old.
The food comes fairly quickly, not the quickest but not too bad. When it arrives though it’s really tasty, I’d visit whether I had a 2 for 1 voucher or not!
What I found a great touch was that despite it not being an extremely large restaurant they’d still made room for a baby changing area in the toilets, equipped with wipes and nappies — a godsend when the time comes!