Zia Lucia - West Hampstead — Restaurant in London

I went with my Italian partner and my parents this past weekend for brunch. It was not a good experience. We waited for a long time to be able to give our order. There were only three people in the front, and one was the Pizza guy, they were understaffed even with a half empty restraurant. We ordered appetisers, olives, focaccia (charcoal) and burrata. Our main courses (Pizzas) came out before our starters. When the starters did come, the foccacia was the wrong base (classic) and the burrata did not arrive. We had to keep asking for water refills (when we could catch the servers attention. I ordered a ham and mushroom but swapped the mushroom for olives. The olives that came on the pizza were the black smooth olives that you find in a jar of supermarket own brand olives, completely tasteless, in fact, worse, they tested so plain they took away taste from the pizza. I didn't think that the quality of the tomato sauce or ham was too great. We sat next to the pizza prep area and it is clear that the quality of the ingredients is quite low, they are keeping the prices low despite charging over £14 for a pizza. The pizza bases were very nice. When I came to pay, they did take off the focaccia and didn't charge us for the Mozarella that didn't arrive. They also charged me for £3 (!!) for my olives, when I queried this as it was a substitution for the mushrooms, they curtly told me, "no substitutions".

As I said above, save your money (£100 for 4 pizzas, a foccacia, some olives, a beer and a glass of wine). Instead go to Cinquecento in Belsize Park which has AMAZING ambiance, AMAZING service, AMAZING food and is much...

I had a reservation here at 11:30 on the 27th June, that is to say at opening time on opening day.

In fact, I was the first ever customer at Zia Lucia West Hampstead... So I shall write up a dramatic rendition of my time there. For the history books.

There was an excited buzz about the place amongst the staff, everything had to be right for the first day, and it certainly was - they were so attentive and on top of things. Everyone rushed out to get a staff photo on the official opening day, how sweet!

Now onto the food, a delicious experience...

My friend had the 'Arianna Sbagliata' on the traditional crust, and I had the 'Margherita' - not because I am one to favour a more classical pizza, but because I wanted to taste the crust, to focus on it, to savour it - for I had mine on a cricket flour crust!

Zia Lucia was offering a limited edition dough with cricket flour mixed into it, only 150 bases available I believe, so I'm glad I booked the earliest reservation I could. I make pizzas as my hobby and I couldn't miss the opportunity to try something like that. I should add, we both opted to have an extra burrata put on top of our pizzas, for that extra decadence. And we both enjoyed our pizzas very much.

Thank you very much to all the lovely staff at Zia Lucia West Hampstead - I hope you had a great first day and much success in the future! We had such a...

I ordered a pizza from Zia Lucia West Hampstead last week and had it delivered. I ordered the Calzone Prosciutto Cotto & Italian Olives folded Pizza with cricket dough and ordered the added garlic dip. I did enjoy the pizza and the dip but I took out the Prosciutto as it was like basic ham slices and not what I was expecting. Today I decided to order the Margherita with Buffalo Mozzarella Pizza and again paid extra for the garlic dip plus roasted aubergines, garlic, olives and capers. I paid £30.29 with delivery. This time I was so disappointed. The garlic dip was missing, so I called up and was told that they were sorry but they wouldn't send a driver out just for some garlic dip. Fair enough I said, I'll pop down myself and get some. When I got back to eat the pizza, I realised that they hadn't added the capers which I had been charged for. I called again and was told that a manager will get back to me. I've heard nothing. I also couldn't taste any added garlic. The tomato sauce on the pizza was only really around the edges and hardly any in the middle of the pizza, and the base was so soggy. I ate half of it as I was hungry but the rest went in the bin. It was quite awful to be honest. Very disappointing as it was early afternoon and they were not busy at all, so no excuse for such poor attention to basic detail. I don't think I'll chance it again after...