| Ambiance: |  (2.5 / 5) |
| Service: | (3 / 5) |
| Value for money: | (2.5 / 5) |
| Toilets: | (3.5 / 5) |
Working in a pub usually means evening work, which, despite living in London is turning out to make my social life suffer. The majority of my school and uni friends now have ‘real jobs’, a bit like me in my former days, meaning they work in the day and are free in the evenings. So, clinging onto all I can get, I arranged to meet Sasha on her lunch break at Yard, Shoreditch.
Yard was actually on my list of ‘must visits’ as it serves pizza by the yard, so when Sasha suggested it, I was all the more keen. It’s in a pretty great location, just off Great Eastern Street and very easy to find (even for me!). On first impressions, it looked pretty rustic – with exposed brick wall and rows of simple square wooden tables and chairs. I quite liked the toilets too as they fitted in with the authentic, half-finished feel of the place.
Sasha arrived and put a stop to my usual habit of sharing a pizza as she’d had one over the weekend so didn’t fancy another. So, I had to go it alone and face a whole pizza (in this occasion, the choice was a ¼ yard). I settled on spinach, pesto, artichoke and baby mozzarella pizza and Sasha ordered the Cajun chicken and shrimp fettucine. The food came within ten minutes, and smelt delicious.
The pizza looked beautiful; covered with different shades of green and finished off with the creamy white of the mozzarella, all it really lacked was that all important ragu sauce. Although the toppings were brilliantly matched, the pizza dough didn’t live up to its initial beauty. Sasha had previously warned me that the pizza wasn’t the best which I’d been surprised about because the Yard uses a stone baked oven. Turns out Sasha was right, the dough tasted over-stretched and almost like it’d been rolled (yes Mr Napoli, I’m agreeing with you here – proper pizza dough should not be rolled). It tasted like it’d been rolled in semolina too, which gave it a slightly sweeter, crunchier flavour. It was also well seasoned but that may have been a result of the salty pesto and freshly cracked pepper on top. All in all, the pizza dough wasn’t the way I love it – soft, springy and slightly bagel-like in taste and texture.
Sasha’s pasta was yummy though, it looked colourful and inviting and the meats were moist and perfectly cooked. There seems to be a new craze in restaurants of pairing white meats with fish. In the last two weeks alone, I’ve seen pork belly with scallop, chicken and crayfish (Maze) and now chicken and shrimp. I’ll give the restaurants credit though, it works. For £10 each, I don’t think the quality of the food really matched the price tag but I liked the idea of pizzas by the yard.
Recommendation
If you fancy a quick bite to eat around Shoreditch, I’d recommend Yard over Pizza East hands down but if you go with more than one person, I’d suggest going for the yard pizza as I have a hunch that’d it taste fresher and less stretched. Try out a few toppings too.
Extra Information:
Address: 140 Tabernacle St, The City EC2A 4SD
Phone: 020 7336 7758
Website: www.yardrestaurants.co.uk/
NTK: The pizzas aren’t cheap, especially for what you end up getting BUT The Yard doesn’t charge you service charge which is novel in London.
