Pizza Express

We go on my mate’s birthday and because he signed up for it in advance, we get a free bottle of Prosecco. That alone makes the trip worthwhile! My birthday is next month. Whenever they have a new menu I like to try the new items before I go back to my favourites. The Dough Balls Formaggi are an improvement on the plain ones. It’s a base animal instinct to love salt so putting a wee bit of a hard cheese atop gives at a lovely salty taste. It may be called Pizza Express; it may be «Italian»; We’re British. We get a side of soft luscious butter instead of olive oil. It melts quickly because the bread is steaming hot having come fresh out of the oven. I am in my usual heaven already.
My freind ordered the Diablo for his mains. Oddly, this isn’t the hottest pizza on offer despite it’s name. The hottest (my favourite to date) is the Calabrese with nduja sausage. To the uninitiated, nduja looks like red pesto on your pizza. It fools the eye because there’s no tomato. That red is the chili peppers. It’s one of the spiciest meat sausages on the planet. The Diablo is more of a traditional meat pizza like what you get in a more American restaurant when you order the «spicy meat» one. Be glad that Pizza Express is evil at heart. Hidden atop is the nduja which helps the Diablo to be the second most spicy pizza on the menu.
Okay, okay. I know I said the Calabrese is my favourite pizza here. I go once a month for a business meeting here and over half the time I order it. Not any more! The new pizza I try today is the new Carbonara. Like a Carbonara pasta sauce, it has pancetta, garlic, mozzarella, and hard cheese. A béchamel makes a good non-​tomato base. Instead of whisking the de rigeur eggs into the bechamel, a whole fresh egg is baked as a separate item in the centre and thankfully solid rather than runny. There is an unbelievably gooey, thick, amazing texture to every bite. Creamy and white, every sense is pleased. I am once again sent to heaven! This is now my new favourite pizza. Sorry, Calabrese!
Once again I will have to change favourites. This time it’s desert. Goodbye, Semi Freddo Reale. Hello, Honeycomb Cream Slice! If what you like is thick gooey cream pie (I do!), if what you like is a base made from salted caramel biscuits (I do!) instead of plain digestive biscuits, then you are going to love this one as much as I do. There’s nothing more lasciviously pleasing than gooey creamy sweet and salty food. This one is so good I go to heaven twice and it replaces the Semi Freddo Reale as my favourite desert here. Because it’s a larger desert, I may still opt for the Semi Freddo Reale sometimes.

The food is really good value, but this restaurant is far too noisy — next time you refurbish, try to do something about all those hard surfaces, chaps.
Lovely thin crust pizzas. Pizza menu is so extensive it takes me ages to choose between the anchovies, asparagus etc. I always end up asking for the olives to be taken off the pizza of my choice, which is never a problem as everything is freshly made. Service attentive and staff usually very helpful. Most dishes are competitively priced, apart from the beer. We were charged £5.95 for a large Peroni. (For heavens sake).
The staff say they do actually receive the tips, so tip generously if service is good.