Shoreditch, the epicenter of ‘cool’ in London. Home to some of the trendiest bars and restaurants, it is the place to be when you want a plod go hang with your amigos.

Pizza East is always heaving with people so you would be quite the optimist if you think you can go without a reservation on the weekend. Pizza East is great if you want to dine with large groups of people because of the ample seating and space to move. It sits on top of a club called Concrete, not our cup of tea but the perfect place to head if you want a place to chill or boogy after your meal and trust us, you will need an after place for Pizza East as like most places has a two hour timer on each table.

The interior is rustic and industrial so very at home with the Shoreditch vibe. They have a wonderful open kitchen and bar where you can sit and watch the action of preparation. True to form for a lot of places in East London prices are cheap.

However, I think the positives that we have mentioned are actually pretty superficial. The food is nothing to rave about and if you love pizza prepare to be disappointed. The menu is Italian fusion so you will see Mac ‘n’ cheese on the menu which from our previous visit was great. The pizza‘s here are majorly lacking in flavour which ever you pick. Elena and I went for an aubergine/pesto pizza and an asparagus and ham (speck) pizza. The pizzas are very tough and the base has no taste which is a shame as there is A LOT OF BASE. Toppings are seriously lacking and not evenly distributed so you end up having a number of slices that are just cheese and tomato.

Service is a tad ridiculous and there is an air of disorganisation. We ordered our starters at 7pm when we had arrived. We were excited to have olives with toasted almonds and prawns with avocado and chilli. The starters were brought to us at 8:15pm once we had eaten half way through our dry and tasteless pizzas. There was no shock or horror from the staff about the forgetting of the starters which communicated that this mess up was a regular thing. The prawn dish was again tasteless and the avocados were over ripped. The olives were the best part of our meal however, it’s not like Pizza East did anything to them but merely served them from the packaging they were bought in.

This meal was a real shame as we really were looking forward to some tasty pizza. We read some other reviews of Pizza East to ensure we hadn’t just visited on the worst night of their life but it seems Pizza East have a pretty strong bad reputation amongst fellow foodies. I think next time we fancy some traditional Italian pizza we will head to La Porchetta in Angel to avoid disappointment.

Pizza East
56 Shoreditch High Street, London E1 6JJ
www.pizzaeast.com