I hadn’t been to a Pizza Express in years. How the mighty fall, me having moved on to the larger joys of La Porchetta or the almost identical, but nicer staffed Pizza Paradiso. But where else to eat on Millbank? And they are celebrating their fortieth birthday with some new recipes. The Crayfish Tail & Tabasco one looked great, and this branch seemed to load its pizzas high. But they were out of crayfish. So I foolishly went for a Chicken and Mushroom pizza. Foolish? Because it was in the Pizza Bianca section.
The chicken was white, the mushrooms were whitish. And there was no tomato. Now perhaps Pizza Express feel they are missing a trick having tomato on all their pizzas. Perhaps it excludes tomato hataz. But tomato is pretty key on most pizzas, and said hataz probably steer clear of Pizza Express. And I am not sure that they would be all that taken by a pizza where the tomato is replaced by bechemel sauce.
So there was this very white, very bland pizza which played like an exploded, half cold, chip shop chicken and mushroom pie: but blander. Whiteness is not something I look for in my food, and this pizza was disappointing. So nice try Pizza Express, but white pizza = Persil Pizza = no no.
Pizza Bianca…which means…oh yes! White Pizza. Now why would it be called a white pizza? Because it’s fucking white you thick duh.
Erm yes that is what Pete is writing about.
We seem to be hooked into remedial.google.com today.
Perhaps it was not clear. Which this pizza was listed in the Pizza Bianca range, it was not clear that a pizza bianca would not have tomato on it until it arrived and was disappointed. Yes I was thick!
White pizzas are very common, and pizza bianca would, I thought, be a reasonably well-known thing (I believe the menu even specifies the lack of tomato sauce).
As someone who goes to Naples just to eat pizza, I can tell you that if you have white pizza in Italy, however, they’ll (depending on the region) not bother with anything like a bechemel sauce, but simply go for the traditional pizza bianca with mozzarella, garlic oil and sometimes ricotta. In many parts of Italy these are more traditional than tomato-laden saucy pizzas.
Your comments about Pizza Express, in my recent experience, could apply to all of their menu these days.