Perhaps not the world's BEST pizza but...

...definitely better than a cheddar speckled concrete slab

That beloved British institution, Pizza Express, turns 60 this year. I say beloved even though people complain that the pizzas have become smaller, and of course you can get decent pizza in pretty much in any sizeable UK city these days. But it wasn’t always that way and there’s something about the tomato-smeared disc that’s so beloved and special to us Brits.

Ah, pizza - so moreish, so evocatively Italian! It didn’t reach my childhood home until the mid-70s - a whole decade after Pizza Express launched. But that was Soho, all smokey jazz and fresh oregano, and we were in a tiny Yorkshire village where brown bread was considered pretty out there. My dad called it PIT-za (and still does to this day).

What is it about pizza that we love so much?

The names, for one thing. Margherita. Fiorentina. Far more glamorous than ‘chips’. When you worked out that Quattro Formaggi meant four cheeses you basically thought you were Sophia Loren.

Plus, if you had young kids in early noughties UK you’ll probably know that Pizza Express was so unfailingly child-friendly, you almost wept with relief that you could treat your family to a sit down meal without the staff glaring at you with abject hatred.

Occasionally we’d take our three to the branch in Upper Street, Islington and it felt like a massive treat. I know people say they can take their children to sophisticated restaurants, and that they’ll tuck in happily to charred cauliflower and fermented eel. But being realistic, what you really want is a cheery casual place, and more than 20 years on I still have an extremely soft spot for Islington’s Pizza Express.

Not so for a restaurant in Berwick-upon-Tweed where Jimmy and I bowled up one lunchtime a couple of years ago. It didn’t look that promising, but we’re not madly fussy and also we were starving.

There was a daytime hen party going on and one side of the restaurant was filled with foil balloons and steaming women. ‘I think I’ll have a pizza,’ Jimmy said.

You can’t go wrong with pizza, right? It’ll never let you down.

This circular item arrived, scattered with industrial orange Cheddar (yes Cheddar!!) and hard as a concrete slab. He almost dislocated his jaw trying to eat a corner of it before giving up.

‘How can anyone make pizza so bad?’ he asked.

Jimmy’s pizza (under construction)

I was going to say it’s a talent of the British - because even at home we cock it up. Weirdly, pizza is extremely burnable food. I put one in the oven, making a mental note to check it after ten minutes and yet after seven seconds it’s a smouldering black disc, like a hubcap from a burn-out car.

But actually you get bad pizzas in other countries too - like the one served to Jimmy (yes, to Jimmy again! Not me!) in a plant-based restaurant in Barcelona when one of our family was vegan.

We sat on plastic chairs in a grim courtyard, sulking, and this thing arrived - a fat circle of dough, covered in that horrible plant cheese that you’re better not bothering with, it’s such a poor substitute for the real thing.

Does anyone ever open their fridge and think, what I really fancy right now is some scrumptious plant cheese? Do we ever gorge on it when drunk?

Mercifully no one in our family is vegan any more, but I see that Cathedral City now do something called, simply, Cathedral City Mature, the main ingredients being coconut oil and starch, gag. And on Sainsbury’s website it’s listed as a Vegan Block which says it all really. Formulated to cosh yourself with so you can escape the horror.

It wasn’t only plant cheese on that Barcelona pizza but chunks of barely parboiled carrot.

So Jimmy had this. What I had was a pretty decent coconut curry so heheh I quite enjoyed the spectacle of him hacking away at it.

Talked about more than the Sagrada Familia or Picasso Museum, ‘The Carrot Pizza’ remains embedded in our family folklore - like ‘Your Famous Cheesecake’ which I made to (try to) impress Jimmy in 1998, the residue of which he says he’s still trying to pressure wash off his mouth lining.

I’m not saying that Pizza Express was ever brilliant at desserts. Their ice cream was spookily white - a ghostly white - and although I’m sure they’ve improved on this score, no one goes there for that.

The first Pizza Express in Wardour Street Soho. Oregano! Jazz! No parboiled carrot!

Admittedly, I haven’t been to a Pizza Express for a few years now. But now I’m thinking, mmm, that oddly delicious salad dressing that’s never quite the same when you have it at home - and of course GLORIOUS PIZZA!

Can you still contribute to the Venice in Peril Fund by ordering the Veneziana?

I must find out.

Love,

Fiona xx

PS Exciting book news! My brand new novel, The Full Nest, is out in next week - on March 13 - and you can preorder your copy here!