Pizza East, Shoreditch

 
Pizza East
56 Shoreditch High Street
London E1 6JJ

Date of Last Visit: Friday,  January 29th

The Victims: Feathers, Jen, Niculie

The Damage: £10ish each

The Background: On Fridays, if I do go out for lunch, I refuse to go out for a 1 p.m. booking. Because here's what happens. EVERYONE goes out for Friday lunch. At 1 p.m. They sit down, they chat. Maybe they order some drinks. And then they all put their orders in between 1:10 p.m. and 1:15 p.m. which means that the kitchen gets slammed and you don't see your food until at least 1:45 p.m.

If it's a Friday booking, I'll only do 12:45 p.m. Beat the crowd by 15 minutes, you know?

So it was that we found ourselves at Pizza East on the last Friday in January. Promptly at 12:45 p.m. And you know, I didn't expect to like the inside as much as I did. This is a pretty cool space. Check out the front deli area. A little retro modern…

Pizza East is also pretty massive. Caterer Search says that on a busy night, they can do 600 covers. The restaurant seats 200. I don't mind massive, as long as you have a good product. And I think Pizza East is off to a pretty good start in that respect.

 
Based on some recommendations from the friendly folks on Twitter, I went for the spicy sausage and sprouting broccoli pizza. Liked it. Big time. Except for maybe the too puffy crust. I left a lot of the crust behind. Carbs are evil anyhow. The sausage was spicy, as advertised. But I've never been quite sure what "sprouting" broccoli means so I can't comment there.

The Verdict: I really liked the space at Pizza East. (Sucker for subway tile, sorry.) My one pizza was pretty good too. I'd go back here. Even just to check out the deli and drink some of the "wine on tap" business.