Tag Archives: pizza restaurant

Soho Joe – great for lunch

Soho Joe – great for lunch

A couple of weeks ago, I was traipsing along Dean Street unsure of what I was going to have for lunch that day.  I had been to Papaya rather too regularly, so I was on the hunt for something else.  This was when I discovered Soho Joe.

Thrilled to see somewhere new opening that very day, I stepped-in through the welcoming, wide open glass doors and was greeted by friendly, helpful and smiley staff- eager to please their first customers.

Presented with an open fridge plentifully adorned with a neat selection of freshly made salads and baguettes, all at a reasonable price, and spotting a pizza oven at the back of the restaurant, I knew immediately I was going to like this place!

I have since been back a number of times and have tried the salads, baguettes and pizzas and I’m yet to be disappointed.  I was particularly impressed by the light, thin crusted pizzas, and at only £6.00 I will have to be seriously strong willed not to have them more than once a week.  Last time I went, I had the four cheeses pizza, and asked for rocket on top.  It was delicious, just as I like it, heaped with masses and masses of cheese.

The baguettes and salads are perfect for eating at your desk, I tend to like a mix of the chorizo and butter bean, chickpea, and Greek salads which they place on a bed of lettuce (thankfully not iceberg), and serve with a hunk of fresh bread.

If you have ever been to pizza@home on the Old Brompton Road, you might not only recognize the great quality, reasonably priced pizzas, but also the owner Brian.  He sold pizza@home about 18 months ago and this is his fantastic new venture.

Soho Joe is exactly what the area needs, a non pretentious, reasonably priced cafe with excellent food and a relaxing atmosphere.  Highly recommended!

Salads and baguettes: £3.50-4.50

Pizzas: £6.00

Burgers and Chips £6.00 (£7.00 with cheese)

Pasta £6.00

22-25 Dean Street, London, W1D 3RY
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Fire and Stone, Covent Garden

Fire and Stone, Covent Garden

Where do I start with Fire and Stone?  Well I guess, the decor is not bad, uber cool and trendy for a pizza restaurant and on the whole I had a fun evening, but that was purely down to the company of old school friends, and the drinks we had before we arrived.  Other than that, I can’t really think of anything else positive to say about the experience.

Now, I might be a traditionalist when it comes to pizzas, but seriously, if you are going to ‘pimp’ a pizza, try shavings of white truffle or carpaccio of swordfish.  What on earth gave Fire and Stone the idea that Cumin spiced ground lamb and raisins would be nice on a pizza?  Oooh, I know, what about a pizza with Thai green coconut curry sauce, roast sweet potato and mozzarella? Really?

So, once I had amused myself reading through the selection of pizza toppings from Asia, Africa and Australaisa, I came across the European pizzas and was delighted to find some normal-ish choices, the Italian pizzas seemed the most appealing, funnily enough.

As we had a voucher that got us two pizzas for £10, we thought it best to mention this before ordering, incase the pizzas we had chosen were not included.  Well, as you can imagine, this was met with a rather surly glare from the waitress.  “Ugh, you have to give me the voucher first.  You can choose any pizzas as we have taken the deluxe ones off the menu.”  The deluxe ones? Is that where all of the normal pizzas went, off the menu – now I get it!

According to the website, Fire & Stone ‘makes & twice proves its own pizza dough every day on site in the restaurant to provide the lightest & crispiest pizza base possible’ – well, I’m not too sure about that!  Two of us went for pizzas, the base was way too thick, had the consistancy cardboard, and had lots of funny hard black dots on the underside, which I can only assume is burnt semolina and flour- Nice!

The other three went for the healthy option of the superfood salad, which by all accounts was not bad, although they all decided they found it rather too exausting to eat all of the little shoots and nuts at the bottom of their bowl, so left half of it.  Maybe that’s why it’s the healthy option, because you use so much energy forking the little bits out? Who knows…

Then there was another thing that really annoyed me about the menu, one pizza was called the ‘Napoli’ and the other was ‘Florence’ – Is it  Naples and Florence or Napoli and Firenze?  You don’t exactly have to speak Italian to work it out, and surely they had someone proof read their menu before printing  it, right?

Anyway, enough moaning, I can’t even be bothered to write about the wine.

Crap food, crap menu, grumpy staff – even if you have a voucher, don’t waste your money.