PizzaExpress — Restaurant in Sheffield

A very close friend of mine had a day off work and we hadn't seen each other for a while. We are both partial to pizza so we decided to go to Pizza Express Ecclessall Road. Parking was no problem there is a car park literally 30 seconds away which costs next to nothing although in the evening there shouldn't be a problem getting a parking place on the road.

We went in and the first thing that hit me was the wonderful aroma of pizza. I felt as if I had been transported to Italy- the home of pizza- in a heartbeat! This very kind and extremely polite lady called Magda showed us to our table and gave us some menus. The lady I was with mentioned we are both vegetarian and Magda said that was no problem. On looking at the menu it clearly wasn't. They cater for everything!

We decided to go for the sharing feast. I am glad we did.

It consists of 2 Large Classic pizzas, 1 portion of Doppio Dough Balls and any 2 sides of your choice.

Those dough balls arrived and the first thing I noticed was how soft and how warm they were. They tasted delicious and they were not too hot. What I loved was how when you put some butter on them how the butter melts so fast. Add them together and you get a real rush of a buttery dough taste. It was divine. Don't get me started on the other two sauces, they were just as good.

My friend and I chose the Funghi di Bosco. Not only did it look delicious but an optional 25p per pizza goes to a very worthy cause so we both chose that. The photo I have enclosed does not do it justice. It's always nice to place an order and to find that the item you've ordered matches the photo on the menu. Magda offered some black penner which gave a fantastic pizza a bit of a kick. The base tasted divine. The cheese was a joy to eat. The mushrooms were clearly fresh, and had been cut literally that hour. Those herbs just hit the spot. I am showing my age but they reminded me of the Art Garfunkel song "Parsley Sage, Rosemary and Thyme!"Those pizzas were so big that there was no way we could finish them so we had them packed up. So the usual questions.Would i go there again? Absolutely. Was it worth the money? Absolutely. Good value at ten times the price.

Would I recommend them to someone else? Of course.

All in all I had a meal fit for a King. Pizza Express should invite King Charles to try their food. I was truly shaken but...

Unfortunately our experience of the food was really not good. We had a table booked for 8 people and were all really looking forward to a big family catch up. The service was ok but the food is what really let it down. The dough balls hadn’t risen properly and were quite flat, the chicken wings were weird, they tasted like aniseed and felt like they were microwaved as they were wet, the pizzas- They didn’t have hardly ANY toppings on them. Toppings were actually missed off 2 pizzas. The pizzas weren’t cut and pizzas cutters were not offered, we had to ask for these. The pizza with the chicken didn’t taste of anything considering it’s called ‘forza’ Italian for strong. The cheesy garlic bread had the tiniest 50p size tiny bit of cheese. He goats cheese pizza was missing the goats cheese…! Overall the toppings (and everyone agreed) were very very sparse/almost non existent. Thank god for the garlic oil, chilli oil and Parmesan. Won’t be returning...

The worst pizza express I've ever been to. Incable of cooking food that's edible. 3 times they've sent food either undercooked or missing items. There is an absence of any quality control and nobody ever answers the phone or returns messages. It's astounding that they have any customers left.

...oh, what a surprise, the same generic reply from the general manager, who appears to lack any sincerity in their reply! Just a suggestion, instead of spending time copying and pasting the same identical response to poor feedback, why not answer the phone when people call and ask to speak to a manager, or even reply to one of my many messages left both with your colleagues and on your answering machine?! Even better, why not actually manage your staff and introduce some sort of quality control to your...