| Ambiance: |  (4 / 5) |
| Service: | (3 / 5) |
| Value for money: | (3 / 5) |
| "Pizza: | (0 / 5) |
I’d been told about Pizza East from numerous friends and London locals so I was excited about trying it out, and it features highly on the majority of London pizza reviews so it was soon on my ‘must visit’ list. However, it’s location (Shoreditch) was the reasoning behind why it took so much time for it be visited. My friend Steph and I have come to the conclusion that we’re not ‘cool’ enough to enjoy Shoreditch – we don’t understand the music, the scene or the people (in our limited experience anyway!), so I wasn’t in a rush to go to the area. But, then a friend suggested it and I thought well, why not.
First impressions? The venue was cool – a converted warehouse with a LOT of space. I wondered how much that’d cost in rent, but it was packed! It was a Friday at 1pm, so prime time for lunch but for such a large venue, to have so many tables filled was impressive, and we’d booked. We were given tokens for our coats and bags, which were subsequently placed on a very insecurely located coat rack in front of the main door, and then were shown to our table. I ordered a Birra Moretti (glad to see this on the menu) and we ordered a few bits to share, including wild boar, gorgonzola and rocket salad, artichoke fritters and salmon croquettes and then a Quattro Staggioni pizza for the all important ‘pizza test’.
The starters were average, the salad (for once!) was hands down the best but like I always say, how hard is salad to serve well?! It was the pizza that was the real let down. It was tepid when it arrived, so went cold pretty quickly and with such a thin base – that certainly didn’t help it on the keep hot stakes. The dough was chewy, too thin and a little burnt around the edges. The only reason we chose Four Cheese was because the veal meatball and other exciting pizzas had ‘bianca’ base. I know its popular in Italy, but I like a ragu not a white sauce base! The toppings on our pizza just tasted like a luxury garlic bread, and I was so unimpressed that I didn’t even want to eat more than a quarter. Which, in hindsight is always a positive – spares me the calories! We didn’t stay for pudding because I was wary about the quality of the previous courses, so we decided on coffee and cake in an independent coffee house afterwards.
Recommendation
It’s a really cool venue but unless we had a particularly bad meal, don’t believe the reviews. The food didn’t live up the hype, the service was a little disappointing but at least the drinks list was okay.
Extra Information:
Address: 56 Shoreditch High St, London, E1 6JJ
Phone: 020 7729 1888
Website: http://www.pizzaeast.com/
NTK: Don’t leave anything too valuable in your bags if you leave them at the bag rack at the door!
