if you want to know the truth about pizza express, i'll tell you everything

This is insane!

btw
I quite like Pizza Express (who have the much better name of Milano in Ireland

this is where I work. Milano are actually meant to be alot nicer than Pizza Expresses, which I would believe.
Many tourists from the UK come in and do not register, despite identical branding and menu, that they are in Pizza Express. Most Irish people would believe Milano is an upmarket chain, which is fine for me.

With recent menu changes, they can no longer use a 'regional' approach, as they have run out of regions of Italy that do not hike up the price and expertise. Emphasising too much on the south of Italy would require a return to using buffalo mozzerella, making good pizzas and better vegetables.
Their latest attempt at a new menu contains only new spicy meat dishes, as 'winter is coming, and people want to be heated up'. We will no longer have anything to do with parmesan, and legally cannot say these words, as what we will be using and offering will be a low cost alternative, I think called 'grano padana'.
We do not serve San Pelligrino as it is too expensive. Our mineral water retails at around €3 a bottle, but a box of twelve is less than 50 cent.

The new menu booklets ignore completely that Irish people would not be impressed with the phrase 'the best thing to hit the UK, since, I don't know when'. Also, ranting about how the new Italian sausages are better than Cumberland sausages is a bit bizarre.

Many nights we have run out of tomato sauce, most of the frozen desserts. And yes, they cannot make the dough, as they do not know how and we would not be allowed to.

I know that this is the same with most restaurants of a similar nature, basically all of their competition.

We have 'How To' cards for everything, from making pizza boxes, slicing cucumbers, greeting customers, and yeah pretty much everything.

Enough of this rant...I wasn't anticipating such a response.

How is this different from any other chain restaurant then? Impersonal, huge mark-up on drinks, pre-prepared food? I mean, I know you said "I know that this is the same with most restaurants of a similar nature", but to home in on Pizza Express (other than that you work there) seems unnecessary. I could tell you the same shit about Little Chef, JD Wetherspoons, Garfunkels and many other places that I, or friends, have worked. You're paying for the uniformity, you know what you're getting.

whoa spill the beans on little chef please!!!!!!!!! little bastard more like amirite!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"You're paying for the uniformity"

my question is, why would anyone do this?

Many people believe that this isn't the case with Pizza Express/Milano. I don't know anything about the places you mentioned, what do people consider the standard to be. This level of food processing entering the restaurant sphere in Ireland is new I imagine, as people are willing to fork out for basically frozen pastas they can buy in Tesco.
There is a big effort within the company to ensure it is not impersonal, and this is working...
I thought people might like to know, is all.

o-ness, this is very interesting, and if anyone did think Pizza Express was somehow high-rent and unique then it must be a bit of a shock, but you're not really saying anything bad about the place as far as I can tell!

a low cost alternative, I think called 'grano padana'

Um, it's cheaper than parmigiano reggiano, and not quite as nice, but it's hardly "low cost" - it's a proper cheese made to proper standards in the same region of Italy. I guess it's cava rather than champagne, whereas you're making it sound like Asti Spumante.

"You're paying for the uniformity"

my question is, why would anyone do this?

Tracer, do you know why Mcdonalds is the world's biggest restuarant chain?

"o-ness"?

"You're paying for the uniformity"

my question is, why would anyone do this?

-- Tracer Hand, Monday, November 5, 2007 10:49 AM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

seriously? practically everything else about industrial/urban society tends towards standardization and uniformity... why not food?

i don't know what "open-plan fern bar chainstore vibe" but p-express goes for it *less* than some places. wagamama kind of aestheticizes the canteen feel. i don't see the problem.

so far the 'truth' of this thread is at a "did u know that pubs are dominated by the major breweries" level of mindblowingness.

Really there is no room for anything 'bad' to occur, due to open kitchens and stringent guidelines on everything. we even must provide our own float. I get that beyond the shock factor there is really nothing.
People expect to read things about spitting, wanking etc but it doesn't happen. Really the worst you're going to get is changed day dots or a hungover waiter washin' your lettuce.
These days people want and expect fresh, however, especially with the high prices they pay.
I do enjoy working there, and I don't know anyone there who doesn't, but that is thankfully due to the good morale and tips, not due to the cunting customers.

so far the 'truth' of this thread is at a "did u know that pubs are dominated by the major breweries" level of mindblowingness.

I'm really into that these days too...

ok i guess if i decide to be willfully disingenous i should be willing to be condescended to

let me rephrase: why do YOU do this, i.e. pay for the uniformity, though you know the ingredients are bad?

So far the 'you can take the kids there without it feeling like a big deal' argument is the best defence I've seen on this thread. Part of the reason restaurants like Pizza Express exist is to fill this niche, because eating out, especially at independent restaurants, is still considered kind of a big deal in Britain in a way it just isn't in, say, France.

I made a fucking wicked king prawn sag balti for dinner on Friday, and I have leftovers to eat cold with chapatis for my lunch today: is it too early for me to eat it already?

I just picked the first food-related thread I saw to ask that, btw.

though you know the ingredients are bad?

Who knows this? o-ess and porkpie know what they're talking about and cheap and frozen != bad

so it's a place where people feel ok about annoying everyone else with their mewling brood

man this place just sounds better and better

xxxpost haha mark are you serious??

let me rephrase: why do YOU do this, i.e. pay for the uniformity, though you know the ingredients are bad?

-- Tracer Hand, Monday, November 5, 2007 11:18 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

cos going to restaurants where they source fresh ingredients from the market that morning = $$$; it's kind of why high-end places are high-end.

a lot of places, including independent places, get their ingredients from big distributors.

there are obviously independent places that are better than pizza express; otoh you can't compare "independent places" with a chain, because there's huge variation in the first category. and that's why people go with the second.

i've been annoyed by children in all sorts of places.

so it's just a money issue. if you could, you'd eat somewhere else.

lol @ "just a money issue"

I refuse to give the children 'colours', as cunting parents outloud suggest that 'the man will bring them now'.
Irish parents are still having 4+ children all within a few months of each other. My friend Eve, viewing houses with her mum, said that 5 bedroom houses are becoming standard.
We often consider offering 'any desserts, coffees, contraception?'.

Drop on by, I'll give you free coffee.

Really going to work is just a money issue, if you could you'd stay at home all day

you said you'd "pay for the uniformity" but now you're saying you're only paying for pizza express because it's cheaper than the bespoke competition. hence "just a money issue" rather than something more, as you had earlier implied. lol!

dom plz stop projecting

I go to work for the aforementioned free coffee.
Halfway through your free pizza you realise the hunger was a better feeling.

you said you'd "pay for the uniformity" but now you're saying you're only paying for pizza express because it's cheaper than the bespoke competition. hence "just a money issue" rather than something more, as you had earlier implied. lol!

-- Tracer Hand, Monday, November 5, 2007 11:33 AM (52 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

no contradiction there. within your money-reach, you can afford either p-express or some other independent place (ie NOT a posh restaurant with sourced fresh ingredients, etc -- also no booking blah blah class ssystem blah). so you go for the chain over the unknown, which in all likelihood, unless you know otherwise, doesn't have a markedly superior ingredient hook-up.

Tracer - I think you need some more condescension. Pizza Express isn't particularly cheap, doesn't use grade A fresh ingredients and is run on extremely rigid lines of uniformity. BUT in the absence of known cheaper/better pizzerias, and when you need to find a place on any high street with which a group of people will all be happy, when you know the quality, hygiene etc is going to be of an acceptable level, and at a price most people are okay - it ticks all the necessary boxes.

Also I really like the food there.

Mark's pretty much got it. Of course I prefer to go to places where the food is freshly sourced and prepared, but sometimes it is nice just to not have to cook/wash up and on occasions like that then all I want is food that I know that I, and others in my company, will enjoy. Pizza Express/Chiquitos/Nandos etc all do that pretty well. I'm not pretending they are anything special or fancy, but they aren't McDonalds either.

(the first time I was ever in Pizza Express was one in, I think, Fulham, with Mark C and a whole bunch of other people. It was a pretty good night)

Little Chef is the expert at everything frozen and cooked in a microwave - bags of microwaveable frozen ready-cooked tagliatelle etc. Though you're pretty much getting what you need there, no-one is ever going to go looking for freshly prepared home cooking in a service station in this country.

I ate the curry. Fucking good it was.

You can't beat a Sloppy Giuseppe, a Peroni and a slice of cheesecake.

if you know what i mean

I'd love to have the time and motivation to search out authentic little sicilian places every time I fancy a pizza, but meanwhile back in reality Pizza Express is fine, as far as I'm concerned. I go in them a lot as they fit various needs :

1) Can't be arsed to cook tonight, but we're not really going *out*, and don't want to spend loads,so let's pop in there.
2) Out shopping or whatever and need more than a sandwich, but want to be quickish.
3) The kids like it.

The diavolo is a very fine pizza indeed, and I have to have one once in a while.

great place to take GF for her birthday, just so she knows her place.

past and pizza = not that hard to make, i can't understand having pasta when you're out. the difference between pasta and pizza available in uk & italian restaurants = not that vast imo.

pizza express pizza is f'in horrible, yuk! tiny, doughy, tasteless, overpriced. i'd take a chance on an unknown independent every time, maybe sometimes i will lose (in a pub in essex i ordered lasagne and when it came it was 90% full of SWEETCORN wtf, who puts sweetcorn in lasagne? i had to pick it all out and then there was nearly nothing left) but at least i don't walk in there KNOWING i'm going to be fleeced.

hilarious

https://twitter.com/PizzaExpress/status/506542316627443712

some pretty excellent jazz acts have played the soho square branch over the years.

THE CHICKENS ARE FROM BRAZIL