Pizza Express Live - Coming to High Holborn Soon

Imagine a Friday or Saturday evening - you want to go to your local Pizza Express for pizza and a few drinks, listen to the background music and then either go on somewhere else or make your way home.  What if that could change?

Let me start by telling you about the pizza making evening I was invited to at Pizza Express at the High Holborn branch.  Easy to reach from the Central Line Underground Station, a few hundred metres from the entrance (99 High Holborn actually). This branch has recently undergone a refurbishment and the downstairs has had a complete makeover including comfortable upholstered seating and bespoke artwork - keep reading to find out all about that.

Most branches of Pizza Express offer pizza making parties especially popular with children but also great for office team building, hen parties and in this case a group of bloggers. I recently wrote about my granddaughter's birthday party at a Pizza Express - you can read it by clicking here.

It's always fun when you are with a group of bloggers - as food is put on the table all the phones and cameras come out and no one touches anything until we have all taken our photos.

There were ten of us and after a few glasses of Prosecco, olives and the famous pizza dough balls

we put on our aprons and seriously stylish hats and started to learn the basics of pizza making.

Let the pizza making begin!

Ready to do the toppings.

Now to bake

and finally eat our creations.

After our creations were made and eaten we went downstairs to see the new venture! It's called Pizza Express Live.

This is the latest one in a series of innovative space changes in the Pizza Express family.  The Pizza Express Live Holborn will open early September.  You will be able to book a table for a great night of comedy live and a great selection of live music acts (in fact every kind of music except jazz as this is the specialty of Pizza Express Jazz Club Soho) and once seated at your table the full Pizza Express menu and drinks menu will be available so you can sit back and enjoy the evening.

Sit around the stage

or take a table, enjoy the entertainment, food and your companion(s) company.

The bar is fully stocked

The sound system is state of the art producing a crisp and clear sound to ensure you don't miss a beat or a joke!

I will certainly be taking Mr R to Central London as soon as we know the list of performers and can book tickets.  What could be better than entertainment, pizza and prosecco?  Will you give it a try?

I was a guest of Pizza Express and was not required to write a positive report of my evening.  As usual all opinions are my own as well as photographs.  No photographs may be reproduced in any way without my express written permission.

Review: Pizza Express Winter Menu

I always love having a meal at my local Pizza Express. Pizza Express opened it's first restaurant in 1965 in London's Soho and have not changed their menu much whilst at the same time have kept it up to date and interesting.

The current menu includes the classics and has several new items added.

I went with Mr R for a quiet Saturday evening out together, something which doesn't happen often due to my hectic schedule.

For starters Mr R had the new Risotto Mio, lovely and creamy with mushrooms and a drizzle of truffle oil.

I had the new Calamari, rings of really tender squid covered in breadcrumbs and served with a Caesar dressing.  I almost expected to find an onion ring inside as I am used to calamari coming in chunks.

Mr R had the new Soho pizza designed to celebrate the original menu of 1965 and opted for the extra selection of cured meats. He picked the classic base not being that fond of the really thin pizza bases.

I wanted to have a new item but the Pizza Express Calzone is my all time favourite and I am afraid that I had to have one of those.

Calzone means pocket in Italian and this is a pizza that looks like an over sized pasty filled with tomato, salami, spinach, cheese and herbs. Mmmm, delicious as usual and far to big to finish so I have half of it to take home.

Mr R ordered the new mini potatoes from the menu and because it took a bit longer than the manager liked he brought us over a huge piece of mozzarella cheese covered in pesto and sweet mini tomatoes.

The Noci potatoes followed shortly and Mr R also called the Potato Monster got stuck in.

Dessert time and neither of us wanted a really heavy pudding.  The two new additions to the dessert menu were perfect.

Bombolini - little doughnut bites filled with strawberry jam surrounding a dollop of vanilla bean ice cream.

Salted Caramel Profiteroles - just three little filled profiteroles dipped in a caramel icing with little bits of honeycomb accompanied by a cafe late - the prefect way to end the meal and the evening.

All the while our waiter, Fabrizio looked after us perfectly, not ignoring us nor being too pushy and recommending his favourites as well.

We slowly waddled our way back to the car park feeling full and satisfied.

We were guests of Pizza Express and as usual all opinions and photos are our own.