London Pizza
 

How come London has such lousy pizza by the slice? I wanted to grab a slice before the theatre in Leicester square and it looked awful. It also looked like all of the stands selling it bought it from the same source - it looked identical.

You inadvertantly hit the nail on the head by saying "in Leicester Square". Everything in Leicester Sq is pony. Its a tourist trap. Are you going to go back to that stall? No. Will some other tourist go to that stall? Yes.<BR><BR>Sorry that you were ripped off, but one thing that message boards such as this can do is try to steer people away from such rip-offs.

Have hardly ever seen pizza by the slice period in London, so it's not real surprising, plus I find street stand food *in general* (meaning there are a few exceptions) to be pretty dreadful there. Hard to get good pizza by the slice in the US as well, save for New York and a couple of other cities! &lt;g&gt;

In London and around the UK, try Pizza Express for cheap and tasty pizza.

Yes, Pizza Express in London is wonderful -- thin crust pizza, fresh and great flavor. But most New Yorkers would probably hate it, because it isn't that thick heavy doughy crust they're used to.

I'm from NY and I like Pizza Express fine, plus I've had some good pizza elsewhere in London...it's just that none of them do "slices", that's what's hard to find and find a good one. :)

I am a New Yorker and the British Museum, the British Library and Pizza Express were the highlights of my first trip to London (no specific order).

where is Pizza Express in London?

Betty, Pizza Express is a restaurant chain, you'll see them all over London. It was perhaps the first chain of its type to specialise in Italian style, rather than American style pizza, and is consistently good across the whole chain. Great for lunch or a reasonably priced evening meal.<BR><BR>Pizza by the slice as take away food just doesn't seem to have really caught on here. Leicester Square is one of the few places you can get it, and Leicester Square is the worst kind of tourist trap. You'd be better grabbing a bag of chips.

A similar but newer (and to my mind, nicer) chain is Ask. I prefer their pizzas, they are similar in style - thincrust Italian style pizzas - but I think the toppings are more generous. They also have a better selection of pastas, and I love their mixed salad starter.<BR><BR>*Generally* speaking, pizza by the slice just isnt a particularly common or popular snack here, so where it is available, it's often eaten mostly by visitors to London. This means, as mentioned above, no repeat business and therefore no incentive for quality or value.<BR><BR>On the other hand there are other snacks you can get to eat on the move, such as sandwiches and mexican style tortilla wraps (which have become quite common).<BR><BR>And if you get the longing for American deep pan pizza, you can find Pizza Hut across the UK. I love Italian style pizza but I also enjoy Pizza Hut deep pan too. To me, they are two very different dishes, but I like both.<BR><BR>Kavey

SInce when is NY pizza thick and doughy?

"Cheap" (as in the price of Pizza Express pizza) is a relative thing. With the exchange rate and the fact that they serve gourmet-type pizzas, kind of like CPK, Pizza Express is not cheap. The "Za" was ok, better than, say, Pizza Hut, but not great.

"since when is New York pizza thick and doughy?"<BR>Since as long as I remember. These days it is sometimes possible to get that wonderful paper thin crust stuff in New York, but at the standard pizza by the slice places, and what seems to be everybody's favorite -- John's -- the pizza is definitely thick. I didn't mean doughy in a bad way -- but yes there is a lot of dough in most New York pizza.

Here's an interesting article on the subject:<BR><BR>http://www.observer.co.uk/review/sto...738164,00.html