49. Pizza In Stratford.

  I had a sudden thought this morning, where has foam gone? Not all that long ago you couldn't have a meal in a smart place without drowning in foam. And now, I can't think of a meal I have eaten recently which has had little bubbly splashes of liquid on it. The cycle of fashion, what goes around comes around and, conversely, what goes around goes away again and, I assume, what goes around will eventually come around again, has turned and foam has passed away - the bubble has burst you might say. Au revoir, or is it Adieu, Foam. Perhaps now we can also say goodbye to unfoamy smears of sauce on plates, often so small that a single taste of them is just about all there is to have any idea of what ingredient they derive from.

  Perhaps we can return to a nice, generous amount of sauce which can still be made to look pretty but isn't so tiny in volume that it's identity remains a mystery. A sauce, a gravy, something to add the final sparkle to fine meat or fish and the other hangers on lurking on the plate or piece of slate or whatever on which the  dish has been served.

  I was interested to read in The Sunday Telegraph this weekend that the founder of the Pizza Express chain of restaurants, Pierre Boizot, had died just before last Christmas, on 5 December 2018. A review of the restaurants described how Boizot had taken on the lease of a 'struggling Soho joint called PizzaExpress' in 1965 and how he had been a 'true pathfinder, realising how this humble Neapolitan foodstuff could be made the basis of a contemporary, cosmopolitan and even a mildly swinging experience, a groovy cavalcade of primary colours, Paolozzi murals and ... live jazz'. 

  Coincidently, a dining companion and I, having limited time to fill up before setting off to see the brilliant production of A Christmas Carol at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon that evening, decided to go along to sample the delights of the Stratford branch of Pizza Express in Ely Street just 2 days after Boizot had died. Our dining place opportunities were limited as my fellow theatregoer has long convinced himself that anywhere that serves spicy food is intolerable to him and that being a well-established penny pincher - physically and psychologically well suited to have offered himself to play Scrooge that night had Aden Gilliat been taken ill and unable to play the leading roll on stage - Pizza Express offered a good opportunity for a relatively inexpensive but filling meal.

  It was ofcourse a Friday evening just before Christmas and the place was pretty full of middle class parents with their noisy offspring waiting to be fed like young gannets lined up on a cliff-face. It won't be the first time that I have stated my lack of love for Italian food in general and my specific disregard for pizzas but here I was hoping to oblige my Dickensian friend. Of course, my friend wanted to save money by sharing a pizza and, having not eaten since breakfast, I thought it would be a good idea to have something extra to ensure that I would feel comfortably replete. I ordered some cheesy garlic bread at a surprisingly high price and was served, almost in a blink, some not very enjoyable bread in a smaller sized helping than I might otherwise expected given the price paid.

  We ordered our pizza, naturally at about the lowest price that was available on the menu, and devoid of any ingredient that would have rendered it even vaguely spicy to fit in with my friend's tastes, and tucked into our demi-pizzas. We chose a 'La Reine' which is described thus:- 'prosciutto cotto, black olives, closed-cup mushrooms, mozzarella and tomato on a Romana base'. It was admirably dull but edible. It was delivered to the table super quickly, showing that the restaurant was capable of living up to the name of Pizza Express. The meal passed quickly and uninterestingly but given our intention to eat reasonably cheaply and without any ingredient which might have any degree of flavour - well I suppose the 3 half-olives were mildly tasty - the restaurant can hardly be blamed for that.

  I was left feeling that, 2 days after its founder's death, Pizza Express hadn't really left me with an overwhelming urge to return for a second visit but the crowds of families with their well-scrubbed offspring seemed to be quite happy there so I am happy to leave the place to that particular clientele.

  The Telegraph article gave Pizza Express a generous 7 out of 10. There's no accounting for taste.