Every 6 months or so the nice people at Pizza Express invite us to come down and try some new things on their menu.
Their Winter Menu for 2015 also coincides with the chain’s 50th Anniversary. This means the addition of new dishes (which are not technically ’new’ since they were on the menu 5 decades back at one point). Also a very tiny pizza range called Romana65 that seems to focus on buffalo mozzarella (which is really the best mozzarella, right?)
(NB: they’ve added more things to the menu than you can realistically try in one sitting (unless you are an elephant that enjoys pizza and that can read menus) so what you see here is obviously not everything that’s new!)
We headed down to the Pizza Express on George Street, Croydon (my endz bruv) to see what some of the new stuff tasted like so that we could inform you.
Stuff we tried this time included…
Autunno
Patricia Moroney’s winning pizza in Pizza Express’ ‘Create Your New Favourite’ competition (chorizo, goat’s cheese, roasted butternut squash, spinach, garlic oil, chilli flakes, tomato and mozzarella, finished with chilli oil and fresh parsley).
I can see why it won. Surprisingly sweet bits of butternut squash contrast wonderfully with the more flat, salty flavours of the garlic oil and cheeses.
Risotto Mio
Chestnut & closed cup mushrooms in a creamy white wine risotto with parsley, garlic oil and pine kernels, finished with Gran Milano cheese, fresh parsley and truffle oil. A good risotto but nothing particularly memorable…
Calamari
Lightly-crumbed crispy calamari rings served with Çaesar dressing, lemon and fresh parsley
Salted Caramel Profiteroles
Part of the ‘Dolcetti’ section in the dessert menu (which kinda means ’small desserts’, I think). These are profiteroles with a sweet caramel coating, the inside filled with salted caramel cream.
Excessively great and balanced out nicely by shit strong espresso at a time of the day that is really too late for full body caffeine injection.
Peperosso
New & truly delicious Calabrian wine, ABV 12.5%. A blend of Merlot and Magliocco grapes that is really quite something! (namely: fruit forward, smoke and leather flavours, which are quite often characteristic of things grown in that region).
As a guy who probably drinks too much Italian wine I can assure you that this is very good value for what you’re getting, and perhaps not what you’d expect…!
