Pizza East

Pizza East has been a weird one for me and my partner. I popped in after they opened and was hugely disappointed, the service was terrible and the pizzas were more like naan breads than italian wood oven cooked pizza!

However, loads of people told me to go back and now we love the place. The pizzas are delicious, up there with some of the best in London. The ingredients are always seem to fresh and the little bar where you can sit and wait for a table is pretty special, the charcuterie and wines are great.

Definitely worth a visit, if at first you don't succeed and all that....!
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Stringer Love - View all reviews by this user
8 Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 8
Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Came here the other night after hearing tons of good things and am happy to say this place lives up to its reputation. Only negative comment would be that you do feel a bit rushed to eat, but I will definitely be back.
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- View all reviews by this user
9 Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 9
Friday, December 16, 2011

We went last night for a friend’s birthday. He had tried to book a table for 18 over the phone, but the lady he spoke to, who was apparently very rude and unhelpful, said that the chef ‘could not cope with a table of 18’! How unprofessional is that?! We were told we could sit at 2 tables, although I’m not sure what difference it actually makes if we are all together or not.

We had a table booked for 8pm but we weren’t seated until after 9pm, at 2 tables at opposite ends of the restaurant, even though there were empty tables together (apparently they were booked, it seems by them running an hour late, it meant we lost our seating!).

The restaurant was over-crowded and too noisy. There was cured meat hanging in the windows that was dripping fat all over the floor, not just utterly disgusting but surely a health hazard?

During our meal the waiter didn’t come over once to see if we wanted more drinks or anything, and in fact when we wanted anything we had to go off and find it! We asked repeatedly for condiments that didn’t actually arrive until we had pretty much finished. Coffee after dinner took 25 minutes to arrive, and only after we had asked for it twice.

The food was substandard- my pizza was about 70% crust, and had 4 measley dribbles of cheese on it- they must be making a fortune by selling warm bread at £12 a pop!

When we actually complained to the waiter about the lack of cheese on our pizzas, the response was ’that’s how it comes’… no apology, no offer to rectify the problem. How is this place even still open? I don’t understand why anyone goes there!

It also tasted so strongly of garlic that I couldn’t taste anything else. I love garlic, but that doesn’t mean I want to taste it for several days afterwards.

We complained so much that they didn’t charge us for our drinks, but I’ve worked in enough restaurants to know that if people are that unsatisfied, they shouldn’t charge us anything at all.

They even had the audacity to charge us service charge, then come back to our table to tell us there was 25p missing off our bill!

I think it’s safe to say that none of us will be going back, and I will also be telling everyone I know not to go. You get better food and service at Pizza Express!

This place is truly awful, I have never been to such a bad restaurant.
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helski
0 Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Thursday, August 04, 2011

Altogether very disappointing. We were kept waiting for our reserved table for about 40 minutes with no apology provided. In fact we were quite rudely asked to move out of the area we were waiting in.

The service was absolutely appalling, one our friends meals did not arrive and when this was pointed out the meal arrived 10 minutes later and pretty much 'frisbee-d' across the table, again with no apology or even any comment at all.

The pizza (rabbit) was horrible. The rabbit meat was minced into meat balls however this was not described this way in the menu. The dough was not pleasant either.
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2 Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 1
Wednesday, April 06, 2011

Not overly impressed with this place, in fact, I didn't like it at all.

A group of 7 of us went for a friend's 30th Birthday. We were handed the menus and then given a list of 6 items which were no longer available, including the rocket salad. Now, I know that sometimes a place just gets really busy and unavoidably runs out of things, but rocket? Surely just run over to the Tesco across the street and buy some more? Then as my boyfriend was ordering his pizza, he was told that now, this choice too was off the menu, 7 items being unavailable is just unacceptable.

Whilst waiting for our drinks to arrive, we were told by the waiter it was taking so long due to the fact we had ordered "so many drinks", eh, we ordered 7 drinks, one for each of us! We had potatoes literally thrown over 2 of us(a mistake, but it just added to the catalogue of errors) the pizza's were, ok, have tasted MUCH better, the carrot cake was just cake, tasted nothing like carrot cake and the staff all looked utterly fed up.

Needless to say, I won't be back which is a shame as the place itself is beautiful and could have been a great place to frequent.
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3 Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 2 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 2
Monday, March 21, 2011

Quite possibly the most horrible pizza experience of my short life. I shall be brief, and orderly:

1. More crust than topping. Like, 200% more. Any topping there was (and there wasnt much) was nestled tinily in the middle of the large spongey pizza base, with swathes and swathes of bare, wasted doughey crust left untouched. I wanted pizza, not a big plate of bread.

2. Not really any topping at all, in fact. Comments from my, and other tables ranged from 'scant' to 'stingy', to 'bare', to 'dry'. Are they trying to save money by scrimping on the mozzerella? Is there a tomato famine in Shoreditch? I just had a few lumps of sausage scattered in the middle of my 'pizza'. Nothing else. Horrid.

3. Starters werent much better either. We ordered a few starters to share, all of which were borderline inedible. I mean, they sounded nice: crab bruschetta, etc. But all tasted a bit funny (ie, oily, cheap) and the flavours they put together just didnt work.

4. Atmosphere. Ok I know we're in Shoreditch and we're in an iconic old warehouse that used to be a pinnacle of the party scene (I know, I was at Tea bar's opening night way back when), but thumping electro and minimal lighting doth not a pleasant restaurant experience make. I could hardly see my friends, let alone talk to them. It isnt a club anymore, guys.

Wont be rushing back. Or even sauntering.
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Lady A
2 Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 1
Monday, January 24, 2011

I have given up on this place. The pizza is OK but the last time I went we were crammed onto a bench with other people. I had to eat my pizza with my hands as there was not enough room to even attempt to use a knife and fork. We were crammed in so tightly that we were almost sat upon each other.

Had no intention of going again, but a couple of friends wanted to go - when calling to book we were given a one and a half hour window. I cancelled and explained why - and was then informed that if we had been a booking for four, rather than three, we would have been offered a two hour window. On this basis do two people get a one hour window??

This place may look good but offers the worst dining experience I have yet to have in London.
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1 Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Sunday, December 19, 2010

Agree completely about the group set menu. I went there for a work do, and there were about 60 of us, we were seated on a very long table and the music was extremely loud. I am presuming we had the set menu, which comprised a small board with tiny slices of procuitto, bresaola and slivers of manchego chese. One of these boards was designed to feed about 5 people, so seemed pretty stingy. Quality wise, the meat was no better than your average deli.

We were not given a pizza each, they just seemed to bring 2 or 3 varieties of pizza at random. No one in my group had a whole pizza and I ended up eating 2 small slices. no better than strada taste wise, and with a sickly dessert that tasted of dime bar covered in salt - again, not enough for one each. it was more like one between 4. by my reckoning the food must have been £10 a head, though we were charged £30. I can only hope that included drinks but I am virtually certain it did not.

All in all a total rip off. I was glad I wasnt the one paying!
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Kedi
4 Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 4 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 2
Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Went as part of a group and we were forced to have the set menu at £30 per head. Looking at their a la carte menu I couldn't see how they could charge that much, but for that price I would have accepted a 3 course meal per person. However, there were signiifcantly fewer of each course than there were people at the table, especially the starters and desserts e.g. we had 2 slices of tart between 5 of us...

We ended up paying nearly £50 per person with only 2-3 small glasses of wine each on top of the food.

Also while the decor is pretty funky and industrial, the music was way too loud, I was shouting to be heard by the person next to me. Not ideal if you were planning on socialising as well as eating.

Food was nice, but of no better quality and much less quantity, especially the pizza toppings, than Pizza Express which is significantly cheaper and offers the chance to hold a conversation.

Don't go as part of a group, however, I won't be returning at all.
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Mr Food - View all reviews by this user
4 Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 1
Sunday, September 26, 2010

The pizzas are lovely and the venue and decor are all very nice, I certainly wouldn't say I didn't enjoy my meal there. However it did have a slight feeling of trying too hard to be trendy. Staff are a bit stuck up and where the place is so big service is slow and its gets very noisy. They wouldn't leave our wine on the table, which was fine, but they also didn't keep an eye on when our glasses were empty so we had to keep asking for a top up. They also serve wine in glass tumblers which I found a bit weird as wine just tastes better from a wine glass.... but maybe that just me being fussy!
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7 Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 6
Monday, June 07, 2010