Pizza Express - Barnet

Just had dinner here alone. Not particularly busy. Usual perfectly decent food. After clearing my main course I was left alone with an empty glass and table, completely ignored for (I timed it) 28 minutes before giving up and asking for the bill. Just staggering.

We were so lucky to be able to visit Pizza Express restaurant in Brent Cross last month. We are year 3 children and have never been on experience like being able to make a pizza. Manager Natalia, waitress Amy and 'top chef ' this is how we call the chef Ian were so great at teaching us where the pizza comes from, what ingredients we need to make a pizza, how to make it and what it needs to be done to cook it. We have learnt so many life skills in your restaurants and we will be making our own pizza at school now or home. The staff was very welcome, happy to have us, delightful with everything we did and teaching us a lot of very important skills and knowledge about pizzas. For such a young children coming out of difficult time like pandemic and learning from home it was just uncountable experience. You are so lucky to employ such a dedicated, wise and professional people in your restaurant. Thank you very much again Natalia, Amy, Ian you just brighten our day and the pizza was very delicious. See you again soon!

Pretty much as my subject says. The restaurant was uninspiring, the food and service even more so. One gets the impression that the waiting staff would rather be elsewhere doing something else, this has been the case on both occasions in the past 3 months.

On arrival we were seated and then waited 20 minutes to place an order. There were two waiters and the person we did approach told us it wasn't their job to take an order and would get someone for us. This person subsequently walked around the whole restaurant trying to get someone's attention for us. Once we placed an order drinks arrived 10 minutes later. We were never asked about refills. The starters arrived cold. No one came back to check or clear plates. The mains arrived and the waiter put the main plates down amongst the uncleared plates and then removed the old ones. We were not offered parmesan or pepper and didn't see the waiter again for them to check on the progress of the meal. We waited a further 20 minutes after finishing our mains and before having to flag down a waiter to ask to order desserts. They arrived ready to take an order but we had not been given a dessert menu, neither had our plates been cleared. The plates were cleared to the table next to us where they stayed right until the end of our meal. At the point of ordering dessert we asked to see a manager. The manager told us she had only two waiters who were new working that night. As much as we understood and felt sympathy about this, our experience was impacted by the lack of service and lack of experience of staff. If you go to an inexperienced or training hairdresser, you receive a discount on prices. The bill we received still was full price for all items. The manager offered us complimentary desserts but subsequently we didn't see another waiter after to order hot drinks and instead we left without completing the meal. Total disaster. Was not impressed and we could see many other customers weren't either.

After waiting ages to be seated in an half empty restaurant, only to be faced by rudeness of the staff. Our waitress half listened to our order. The food was awful pretty much bread and cheap tomato paste thrown on a plate. Certainly will not be going back !