Pizza Express, Cambridge

Perfect Pizza

Pizza Express is one of my favourite high street restaurants and it makes a pretty good pizza too!

Pizza Express are a chain of restaurants so you are pretty much guaranteed to find one on just about every high street in England. I think the mass appeal of them is that they are both adult and child friendly. I often go in with friends for an adult dinner, wine included but feel equally comfortable taking ...
...very easy to spot a Pizza Express. They generally have a sign hanging up outside which includes their logo, the word Pizza Express surrounded by a sort of squiggly line pattern in the shape of a circle. The restaurant sign is blue as is the awning and some of the inside. Inside the restaurant it is always quite fresh and modern with lots of wooden floors and quite neutral looking tables. All the tables generally have a blue vase on them with a flower ... more

Perfect Pizza

Pizza Express is one of my favourite high street restaurants and it makes a pretty good pizza too!

Pizza Express are a chain of restaurants so you are pretty much guaranteed to find one on just about every high street in England. I think the mass appeal of them is that they are both adult and child friendly. I often go in with friends for an adult dinner, wine included but feel equally comfortable taking kids in there as they are always friendly to children and have food that children will want to eat too. I think what’s also great about them is that they actually offer a high quality meal for not a very high price.

The chain was founded in 1965 by Peter Boizot and the first restaurant opened was opened in London. It’s very easy to spot a Pizza Express. They generally have a sign hanging up outside which includes their logo, the word Pizza Express surrounded by a sort of squiggly line pattern in the shape of a circle. The restaurant sign is blue as is the awning and some of the inside. Inside the restaurant it is always quite fresh and modern with lots of wooden floors and quite neutral looking tables. All the tables generally have a blue vase on them with a flower in which I think gives the restaurant a nice touch. According to their website, Peter Boizot is quoted as saying, “Our restaurants carry on the tradition of making the surroundings as important as the food.” I like this statement and I think sometimes the ambience in a restaurant will add to your meal out as much as the food so I definitely like that they make it a priority.

The menu comes on a big two sided piece of card. Of course, as their name suggest, they do have an extensive pizza range for just about every pallet. What I like about the pizzas is that they are thin crust, Italian style pizzas. They are made using a 43 year old dough recipe and hand stretched so guaranteed to taste great. Each of their pizzas has a special name to signify the ingredients you will find on it. For example the American is a classic pepperoni, The Siciliana has artichokes and anchovies and so on. There are lots of wonderful ingredients used in all their pizzas and great combinations. A quick count of their menu shows up at least 18 different pizzas. They do give you the option though to add your own toppings and make it your own pizza. Adding an ingredient will cost you between £1.15 and £1.50.

As well as pizzas they also have a great range of pasta dishes such as Lasagna, Cannelloni and some wonderful salads to choose from too. The starters are always worth a look too. The best one they do is probably the dough balls, a plate of little balls made of out pizza dough that come with a little dish or garlic butter, perfect for sharing but even better to have on your own.

The desserts are well worth a try to They do some really nice Italian ice creams or for the all the chocolate lovers out there Chocolate Glory is delicious, vanilla ice cream with bits of chocolate fudge cake, drizzled with chocolate sauce!

In terms of price I would call Pizza Express a middle of the road type restaurant. It’s not as cheap as Pizza Hut but then the quality is far better. In Pizza Express expect to pay between £7.95 and £9.45 for a pizza with starters approximately £5 and desserts about the same. What’s great is that they have a brilliant value kids menu, 3 courses for £5.75. The choice is a bit less, starters is dough balls, followed by the choice of three different pizzas, or a salad or a pasta dish and three desserts.

At the moment they are running a coupon promotion, buy one main course, get another one free so there’s no excuse not to visit. I think it’s a great pizza restaurant where you are pretty much guaranteed a good meal every visit.

The Cambridge restaurant is located on 26-28 Regent Street, CB2 1 DB. It’s right in the middle of the city so it’s very easy to get to and over looks Downing College so it’s got great views. There is also a terrace outside where you overlook the college so it’s nice to sit out on a warm summer’s day. Their telephone number is 01223 306 777.
 

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