Village Pizza — Restaurant in Epsom and Ewell

Me and my gf made an order on the deliveroo website on Wednesday for 2 vegan margherita pizzas. (With added green pepper and red onion). As you can see in the photos the pizza place is called Village Pizza Vegan. The description goes on to mention that this is Vegan Pizza heaven, how they are a registered member of the Vegan Society, and do everything they can to provide Real Vegan Pizza.

So the pizza arrived and it looked great.(as seen in the first photo). It looked just like a non-vegan pizza. We were impressed with the quality of the "vegan" cheese. It was stringy and cheesey and had caramelised on top like real cheese. Me and my GF were so impressed we got worried that perhaps it wasn't vegan. We checked the deliveroo app again just to double check. We clearly ordered from village pizza vegan and the margherita pizza clearly says it comes with 'village cheez' (vegan cheese).

So our minds were put at ease. But then we ordered the exact same pizzas last night, as we had been so impressed with how real the cheese was. I got a phone call shortly after ordering my vegan margherita to confirm I wanted vegan cheese as the topping. This raised some alarm bells. Why would my vegan order from a vegan pizza place check to see I wanted vegan cheese? I didn't receive that phone call the previous time.

Me and my gf then started to feel uneasy about the previous order. Had we eaten real cheese? We figured our minds would only be eased once the pizzas turned up and we saw them. Usually vegan cheese doesn't caramelise. It usually looks like a bland creamy substance.

When the pizzas showed up they looked like how I described as shown in the second photo below. They also tasted really bland and "fake" like many vegan pizzas we have tried over the years. We realised that if this was the Vegan cheese option then what we got previously was not. We both had a feeling it was too good to be true when we tried the pizza previously. But the menu we ordered from clearly states it is a vegan pizza menu.

After we had our pizza (that had dairy cheese on instead of vegan cheez) on Wednesday, my gf had a bad stomach and my skin started to get a bit rashy and tender as I am lactose intolerant. But we put it down to the fact we don't normally eat processed foods and takeaways and so perhaps just had a sensitive reaction. But we both felt fine after getting an actual vegan pizza on Friday.

We called the business last night and spoke to the manager. He didn't seem alarmed nor did he start off by apologising. Instead he kept interrupting my gf on the phone as she was trying to explain the situation. He kept repeating that they use the same vegan cheez on all pizzas (which confirmed why the pizzas looked different only 2 days apart) instead of listening to our point that what we got wasn't vegan cheez but actual mozzarella cheese.

He then kept saying he wasn't there on wednesday night so couldn't really comment and said he would ask the manager who was there wednesday if they had sent us out non-vegan pizzas. (I'm not sure how they would remember every individual order.)

If me or my gf had a dairy allergy, this could have been very serious, potentially deadly. Instead we are both intolerant and had negative reactions. The manager didn't seem to understand the seriousness of this or seem apologetic. Me and my gf are vegan because we don't want to eat animals or pay towards animal cruelty and exploitation and have been this way for many years. So we are extremely disappointed that due to the negligence of this pizza place we ended up paying for and consuming an animal product.

I cannot understand how a place called Village Pizza VEGAN that offers VEGAN pizzas can get this so wrong.

The vegan pizza we did get was really average and not worth the money.

Through deliveroo we did get a refund so that is at least something. But this experienced ruined our evening and our bodies are both now reacting badly due to being...

The food looked very poor for the price I paid. It felt like a frozen pizza from the supermarket. The food wasn't hot; it was already cold. I waited a long time for my order after changing the information from "pizza preparation" to "delivery." After a while, I got a message on the app that the pizza had been delivered, even though no one had delivered it. I called the restaurant and was informed that my order would be re-delivered. I'd like to know if I'd been scammed if I hadn't called. I haven't received any information from the restaurant about why this happened, and the delivery person refused to answer.

Update.

The next day, the restaurant called me trying to convince me to cancel my Google review. They told me it was the courier's first day on the job, but still no explanation as to why my undelivered food was marked as delivered in the app. Why didn't the courier call me if there was a problem? Why didn't the next courier have any problems delivering my order? Instead, they tried to bribe me with a free pizza to remove the review. This further confirms my negative review. It would have been better to admit the mistake and apologize in a comment than to try to cover it up.

I'm not someone who writes reviews because I work in the restaurant industry and I know that mistakes can sometimes happen. But an attempted scam has forced me to write my first review. It's just a shame it has to...

By far the best Pizzeria in the Ewell area even though it is takeaway only. The selection on offer is varied and delicious, the staff are incredibly friendly and knowledgeable and delivery or collection is fast and efficient. I am a coeliac so can't have gluten and as soon as I mentioned it the team here were quick to point out certain things I can't have when I made a selection ensuring that the pizza was tailored to my requirement. I had a nice chat with Atusa and couldn't decide on which 2nd pizza to get so let her make the decision and boy... That pizza was amazing! I'm not even a massive fan of pizza so don't order often but when I'm lazy I always use Village Pizza and they have never once disappointed me - keep up the good work guys and gals....