Renovations cost almost 1 million, but the restaurant now takes a net 40,000 weekly, of which about a quarter is profit. The high-tech Alban Gate branch is dazzling in a different way, with twin facing units on two floors each, boasting vast expanses of glass and metal. In contrast, the popular St Martin's Lane branch, near Leicester Square, has a more decorous nautical theme, chosen because St Martin is the patron saint of sailors, and has a wall of well-stocked bookcases and a collection of model yachts. What all restaurants have in common, in addition to the menu, are certain features like an open kitchen in a prominent spot so diners can watch the cooks at work, standard track lighting with pinpoint spots shining on each table and in some branches, decor elements like venerable oil portraits of distinguished Victorian and Regency gentlemen and ladies. ONE particularly popular feature of many Pizzaexpress branches is jazz clubs, held in restaurants where zoning regulations permit music.
Plans are to hold similar jazz sessions in Israel.
In 1998, this club was chosen the best live music venue by Time Out magazine. On the night we visited, Sting, who had come along to hear his friend Andy Summers play, joined in an impromptu performance. Huge refrigerated storerooms store supplies of especially made and canned Italian tomato sauce, flour, wine and other food and decor items bought in bulk, down to the coffee cups and flower vases that decorate individual tables. The bakery produces its own dough, a mechanized operation which involves mixing huge quantities of flour, warm water, yeast, sugar and salt in vats, forming the dough into portions which are then flash-frozen and thud off the assembly line, hard as rocks, into plastic bags. The bags are distributed to individual restaurants where the dough is warmed, spread into individual pans, topped with the required additions including cubed, rather than grated cheese, and baked.