By on 10th January

If you’re a pizza chain in London you’re up against it from day one. Even if you do manage to poach punters away from Pizza Express, you’ve got any number of independent Italian restaurants to deal with, many of whom have cleverly plonked their kitchens next to the window so you can watch chefs masterfully twirling pizza bases.

So you can see why relative newcomer Fire and Stone has attempted to distance itself from the rest of the pack by topping their pizzas with unusual ingredients (think minced lamb/shredded crispy duck/roast potatoes) while giving them names like ‘Marrakesh‘ and ‘Texas‘ to spell out the destinations they’ve been designed to represent. Being a huge fan of Moroccan food, it was the promise of lamb, tzatziki, mint and olives on a pizza that lured me into the Fire and Stone in Covent Garden.

My girlfriend and I ordered ‘Arancini‘ risotto balls to start, together with a bottle of red. So far so good. When the pizzas arrived, though, things took a turn for the worse. To begin with, they didn’t feel anywhere near hot enough (you had to wonder how long they’d been sitting out in the kitchen), while the tzatziki had been unceremoniously dumped on only two or three of the eight slices. With both our mains offering up very little in the way of flavour, we ended up over-compensating with chilli oil and found that neither of us could finish.

You also have to question the atmospere of a restaurant that leaves you having to shout over McFly and Lilly Allen to keep your dinner conversation going. Take away the initial intrigue of the unusual combinations of toppings and you’re left with average pizza in a restaurant that feels a tiny bit like a school disco. We’d passed three Italian restaurants on the way from our flat to the tube station, and Fire and Stone was simply not worth the extra effort.

Words by Tom Watts

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