Oscars Pizza Co Ltd — Restaurant in Dacorum

Why go to Oscar's pizza? It's not comparable to an upmarket pizzeria, nor a cheap, so-so takeaway. Instead, it is distinctly mediocre.

I had the Saffrons Bella, which is a Parma ham, rocket, cherry tomato and Parmesan pizza. My friends had the Funghi; mushroom, Paulo Linea Muscia; goats cheese, pesto and caramelised onion and the Parmiagana; Parma ham.

Presentation was off, with an unappealing scattering of the ingredients. The Parmiagana was similarly thrown together. The Paulo Linea Muscia did look quite nice.

Taste? I was really disappointed. The cherry tomatoes were cold, why? Tomatoes shouldn't really be kept in the fridge, and they were bland. The parmesan "shavings" were gratings, that added nothing. It was mild. The Parma ham was similarly tasteless. My friend who had the Parmiagno said it was "meh". The tomato sauce base was overly flavoured with oregano and garlic for my tastes and the base was quite bready.

It should be said that the Paulo Linea Muscia which I sampled was very nice. The balance of onion and goats cheese worked really well.

The Funghi consisted only of field mushrooms - the blandest, cheapest of mushroom. Bit of a joke.

The mozzarella that comes on all the pizzas isn't good.

I kind of wish the pizza came pre-sliced, it was frustrating to cut up with a knife. Maybe a pizza wheel and board would be better?

I had the Merlot wine, it was nice.

The service was fine, I wish I'd been asked what I thought of the meal at the end. The time from ordering to receiving the pizza was speedy.

Ambience was ok, paintings on the wall I thought were a bit weird. Maybe you'll like them.

For £14, I'd go for a...

Atmosphere. Pretty standard, nothing special.

Service. Extremely slow and lacking at all phases. I've never seen 2 people stood around talking while waiting 10 minutes to have our plates cleared. I've also never seen someone sit down at the table they're cleaning and wiping down... I've also never known a waitress to not know the menu... Such as the Cannelloni... That doesn't need the "what pasta would you like with that?" question.

Food. Ordered off the specials board. I'm not sure of the definition of special. I ordered the Tiger Prawns in a garlic, white wine, and butter sauce.

TLDR. Bland, flavourless (unless you like butter). Prawns dubious and overcooked. A ready meal would have been better.

The Prawns had three issues. Firstly an identity crisis. Having worked as a fishmonger for a few years, they looked and tasted suspiciously like King... But they were so overcooked (Shapes: C is Cooked, O is Overcooked), and drenched in butter they could have been anything by that point. The sauce was just butter. There were pockets of garlic, but I'm not sure if the white wine had been added - whoever added it didn't know how to cook with it.

Tiramisu desert was also bland. Not light and airy and flavoursome, but stodgy... Was almost like someone made it following a trifle recipe. Cheap Mascarpone and dry AF ladyfingers. Had a Tiramisu at the Miller & Carter a 5 minute walk up the road, it was £2 more expensive but infinitely better.

It was a sad experience overall, after we had been recommended it by someone who visited a couple of years ago - but...

So disappointed! Everything was great until we received the bill, the food was great our waitress was great we were already planning our next visit. However, we were offered their Sunday deal any two pizzas £9.95 per person. Our food arrived and came as four individual pizzas. The bill came and we were charged full price for everything, the manager said this was because the pizza should have been two large sharing pizzas instead of four individual pizzas, but when we explained that this was their error not ours he argued. He eventually reduced the bill, but it came back with additional charges for vegan cheese, again we explained that we had specifically asked the waitress if the vegan pizzas were included in the deal and that no extra charges had been explained. The manager argued continuously for at least 10 minutes, citing fine print on the main menu that we had not seen, due to ordering from the vegan menu. He seemed completely uninterested in our explanations and refused to listen to our complaints. Eventually he conceded and deducted the vegan tax, but we later discovered that they had overcharged the pizzas anyway... £43.90 / 4 is not £9.95 per person. Lovely restaurant, great food, shame about the manager. It ruined our experience, we would have been regular returning customers if it weren’t for...