PizzaExpress — Restaurant in Vale of White Horse

Where do you start with this? We booked a table of 11 for my daughter’s 16th birthday celebration with our family. The ‘Manager’ was diabolical. Right from the off she gestured to our table and carried on serving. We sat down and 20 minutes later were having to ask a waiter to serve us for drinks. We had to re ask the waiter to serve us to place our orders as we had been completely ignored. When the starters did start to arrive it was in dribs and drabs but, and this is where you have to start to laugh - the three portions of dough ball doppio came out looking like peanuts. When we asked what had happened to them, the waiter advised that some of them hadn’t risen properly. Not sure how you can serve them up knowing they were unacceptable but nevertheless there they were and so we sent them back to the kitchen. We then waited another 20 minutes for them to reappear - still without the two youngest members of the family’s starters - again, dough balls. We asked to speak to the manager at this point. The waiter went away and came back to advise she was in the kitchen and would be out in 5 minutes. Should a manager be in the kitchen? Perhaps - to sort out the kitchen issues but when she didn’t appear after a further 10 minutes, I went to the kitchen entrance and she was in there preparing the food herself. When I caught her attention and asked her to come out to speak with me, she told me to give her five minutes. It was at that point I said no, enough was enough and asked her to come out immediately to discuss the service. She slammed her way out, stomped across to me and asked me what was the problem - knowing full well. I explained to her that she had effectively ruined our family celebration for my daughter by making us wait (at that point) for over an hour for sub standard service and food to which she asked me what she wanted her to do about it (!) You’re the manager. If you don’t know what to do about it then I don’t know what else to say to you. So the answer was nothing. We told her we were leaving. She then said ‘so you don’t want me to carry on with your mains, then’ No, lady. We don’t. All I can say is thank God for Dominos delivery. Well done Pizza Express Abingdon. You have truly surpassed yourself with your inadequate food, staff and management. A Saturday night, table of 11 at 6pm in a half full...

As always Pizza Express choose fantastic historical buildings so the romantic factor is unequalled. I found the staff here to be very well trained and polite so I am looking forward to a new invitation to be able to up my rating.

I am giving this restaurant a low rating for two reasons: 1- the access was indescribably bad. I am not sure who approved the ramp system but the angle was way over 30° and there was a lip on the other side so I was encouraged to 'jump' the lip on exit. As I have a docking system under my powerchair this was not possible. And yet, there was a large paved area outside with Colums which Pizza Express clearly own, and so the ramp purchased could have easily been bought long enough to cover that area. And then a second rubber ramp could be bought for the lip inside the door. Instead people had to waste their time trying to hold down the ramp and prevent me falling at the back.

This is a large chain so they have enough money to fix it and a reputation big enough to need to do so.

I've left my recommendations with the company and hope to receive an invitation to visit and revise my review as a result of better access.

The second reason for a low review would be the pasta dish I received. This was not cooked well, parts of it were dry on the edges and there was no garnish or decoration. It looked and tasted like someone opened a can of tomatoes, poured it over undercooked gluten free pasta and then added frozen prawns with no cooking prep to any of the items. I've never had to do this in my life...but I am afraid I reordered. The staff handled this ever so politely and well.

If you are neurodivergent you may struggle with proximity issues in this restaurant. If you have mobility issues and are also neurodivergent then this is not the restaurant for you as the bar area is near the door and the disabled access and eating area is also near the door. The bar is near the door and has lots of metal things clanging so quite disturbing for those with audio processing issues or autism. The chairs also have metal legs and they scrape loudly on the floor making the atmosphere intolerable without ear plugs or defenders for the...

First time takeaway orderees’- and definitely LAST TIME ORDEREES’! Absolutely horrific experience- £102 later for 5 x substandard pizza takeaways, and a handful of sides. Looked mouth-wateringly delish in food photography online, making ordering too much easy. The reality was eating dry, sparse toppings of flavourless dry chicken and wilted mushroom (not exotic funghai) on a cardboard round cutout of flavourless gluten free paper. Chewy, soggy, tasteless. Sparse toppings. A small substandard size. Poor packaging. Cold salad was warm after being in carrier with hot starters. Broken bone chicken wings, either suggesting battery farmed chickens abused during slaughter, or a chef who clobbers the wings when preparing them. Equally unsatisfactory and an eating hazard if bone chard lacerates your throat or stomach. Food was honestly awful, and at a cost of £102, it was an angry disappointment. After spending the whole day moving house, being exhausted and extremely hungry, I thought I’d treat my family of 5, food alone was £102, no drinks purchased. I felt totally ripped off. I did not eat a thing. My kids ate the substandard food because there was nothing else for them to eat, and unfortunately too late to get other food. I was furious and angry. I cannot believe that food establishments can serve such substandard food and think it’s okay. The manager should not have allowed that order to leave the doors. Total disregard of the cost of good food, and customer satisfaction, let alone business and restaurant standards and customer returning power. I will never order food from Pizza Express again, anywhere in the world. A terrible experience from beginning to end.

If I had £100 to spend in a restaurant, I WOULD NOT BUY FROM THEM. Save your money. Save yourself from being ripped off. They don’t deserve to be in business, not when everyone is digging deep to find money to have a treat or meal out. There are other artisan restaurants that will go out of their way to give you value for money packed with flavour and locally sourced ingredients. Support them rather. Don’t waste your time or money at...