Pizza Express

This restaurant is alright but I much prefer it’s cousin at Fort Kinnaird. The only advantage this one has over the Fort one is the sea view. Other than that, the seats are plastic, the restaurant is freezing (this is the case for the entire centre except Debenhams) and it is ALWAYS busy! Also my pizza was cold by the time it got to me.

Only ended up here because I wont go to Frankie and Benny’s. and all the other places had big queues this xmas eve eve shopping day lunch time. HAD to eat something…
Table for one. One pizza. One more example of a terrible frozen spinach being stuck on pizzas. I’m pretty sure last time i had a fiorentina it was fresh spinach… Hardly a jot of mozzarella cheese, the egg was poorly cooked and also the only part of the pizza smothered in pre-​granulated parmesan type stuff.
I had my water, ate what I could, read my book, chilled out as much as I could in a place almost entirely populated by under 5s, and left. It’s not hard to at least say goodbye, but about 6 people didn’t to me. Hey ho.
BO RING.

Pizza Express… you get the same pretty much everywhere don’t you? It boils down to do you like the place, the service, as the food will be relatively the same (unless the student cooking it is REALLY bad). It always seems to be students… so if not, please don’t take offence.
At New Year, we stumbled into the Ocean Terminal branch, and tucked into some pleasant enough New Year menu fare, complete with Bucks Fizz. Neither of us expected much out of the place, but we came out of it with that bemused feeling of hang on, we’re in a shopping centre, in a chain restaurant, and it was… good? Eesh, didn’t see that one coming. It’s never going to win awards, but to be happy enough to pay for food these days is sometimes an impossible task, so well done, PE, you just raised the bar (alright, so the bar is near the ground, but who’s asking!).

High five for the quick and friendly service.
We both had the sicilian lemonade which was really lemony and sweet, just as it should be.
The pizza was well I guess ok — it was a nive thin base but could of done with being a bit crisper on the base. It was tasty though.
It’s just another chain in another shopping mall but it was alright I guess,

This was my second experience with the PizzaExpress juggernaut and both experiences have been pretty good. I first visited the Euston Road location in London and experienced the same entirely decent pizzas and service I got at the Leith location this evening. The thin-​crispy Romana pizzas are reliably good and not overwhelmingly filling, even though they look HUGE when they come out. I had the goat’s cheese Padana and it’s decent! While I too choose to eat in local eateries whenever possible, sometimes one finds oneself in mall or a late night situation and this chain is perfect for that. Even if you are a vegetarian and that’s important for my family. The stand-​out bit about PizzaExpress is the kid’s menu. A three course meal with choices almost any kid would appreciate, and my small people are considerably picky. Even the hot milky «kid cappuccino» at the end pleased them. So, if you have a large group, you’re stuck for food, it’s getting late, everyone is cranky and hungry, head for this chain! They will sort you out. I checked into their background and found nothing really worrying about the people who own or operate it. If all chains were this good, they would not have such a bad rep.

i love going to independent restuarants and supporting what is local to edinburgh. but sometimes there is nothing better than heading to a chain restaurant where you know exactly what you will get. so last wednesday night, the boyfriend and i decided on pizza express for a quick dinner. also as it was orange wednesday we got the 2for1 offer (which includes free dough balls as starter but we turned this down).
now i know i seem to love the idea of pizza express, so why three stars… let me break down the night:
we were seated right away and the restaurant seemed fairly quiet for a wednesday night as it was only about half full. this was fine, but then we waited over 10 minutes to order food and every time i tried to catch a waiter to come to our table they seemed to just ignore us. very annoying as i was super hungry and getting the grumpy stage of hunger.
finally someone took our order and our starter was brought out shortly after this. we shared the antipasti platter which was super tasty. the green goddess olives are amazing!!! they are just so incredibly good! we finished and a waitress came to clear the table and seriously she could not have been more unfriendly or look more annoyed. i found it a bit odd as she came over voluntarily to ask if we were done so not sure what her problem was…
our mains took a bit longer to arrive, but when they did they were very good. i can’t remember what my pizza was called but it had gorgonzola, artichokes, crispy parma ham, and leeks on it. it was delicious and i was a bit sad i couldn’t manage to finish it! the boyfriend had a pizza with bolonegse and meatballs on it which he also said was very good.
when we finished we waited quite awhile for someone to clear our table and then when we turned down dessert the waitress just disappeared. i almost had to physically grab someone to get our bill after a ten minute struggle of trying to make eye contact with a waitress to come to our table. when i did ask for the bill and said i had a 2for1 code the girl said ok and then just walked away. a few minutes later another waitress arrived with a bill at full cost as my 2for1 offer hadn’t been taken. to be fair she quickly remedied this and we managed to pay.
so three stars as while the food was very tasty and enjoyable the service was just appalling. i don’t think we had the same waitress serving us twice during the time. it’s a bit of a shame as being in ocean terminal this place is handy for a quick bite after the movies or shopping but if the service remains to be this slow i’ll head to one of the independent italians on the shore instead.

I have visited this Pizza Express a few times since it recently opened and i’ve had mixed experiences. This chain is great for a quick and cheap bite to eat, you always know what to expect. There is always a 2for1 (or similar) voucher code on their website that you can use which makes it good value for money.
The last couple of times i’ve been i had the Quattro Formaggi (4 cheese) pizza on a romana base and it is always delicious. The pizza is huge and the base lovely and thin. My only complaint about my visits to this particular Pizza Express would be from my last 2 visits, previous to this all the staff were lovely and attentive. Last time I visited the waitress didn’t write down our order and when we got our pizzas i had the wrong one (mushroom instead of the 4 cheese), this was an honest mistake and the staff were very apologetic and did bring me the right pizza but by this time my boyfriend had totally finished his. I didn’t mind but maybe she will write it down next time.
The time before this was quite disappointing. We waited for a while waiting for someone to come up to us to seat us but no one appeared, they were all «busy» making coffee. However, a lovely chef saw that no one was assisting us so he came over and seated us with menus, not his job at all so big brownie points to him. He then told the staff and we waited a while longer and no one came to our table so again the same chef came over and asked if we had been served, when we said we hadn’t he was obviously frustrated at the waiting staff and apologetic to us. We were finally served and all I can put this down to was a Pizza Express off day (apart from the helpful chef).
Overall, great food and location (free parking at Ocean Terminal if you drive), the staff do need a bit of ironing out but it is a new branch and they are usually lovely. The other few times that i have visited the staff have been fun, helpful and chatty.