Firezza Pizza has a few branches throughout London, but none of them are exactly central, and by central, I mean close to the West End or the City. Most of them are in Zone 2 or beyond. But, there is one in Notting Hill, and I was in the area one day so thought that I would visit as I'd heard that they make a pretty decent pizza. They did used to have a Soho branch, but it is no more.
Unfortunately, I discovered that there aren't any seats in this Notting Hill branch of Firezza Pizza, even though there is a front room and it does offer plenty of room for a few tables. I think they are missing a trick. They are a takeaway-only pizza shop, and I am assuming that their other branches are the same way. This meant that I had to take my pizza away and try to find a place. But, I'd gone a little bit out of my way so was determined to make the most out of the situation.
So, my pizza and I went to Portobello Road, a couple of blocks away. Now, seeing as this area has markets on Saturdays and gets extremely busy, I thought for sure that there would be some benches somewhere along the street or a quiet area just off one of the side streets. But, I was wrong. I walked to the top of the street, and there were not any benches or places to sit at all. I was disappointed. There should be benches to sit at along Portobello Road. The road gets so busy, so people need to sit down somewhere, especially older people and tired tourists. I think this is greatly over-looked.
I ended up having to sit on the step in a doorway half way down Portobello Road. This was not at all glamourous, and neither were the people that walked up begging me for coins and the others wandering past wondering why I was sitting there eating what was now a slightly chilled pizza.
Overall, the pizza was good. it would have been better if it was warm. I think that they should give customers the option of eating inside the shop to avoid attracting unwanted attention outside, especially if you don't live in the area but are in the area and wanted a bite to eat and didn't want to go to one of the cafes (they do get busy in this area). I can imagine they'd do a fair amount of business on market days. So, they do have to lose points for the fact that they don't allow visitors to eat inside their shop. But, otherwise, it seemed like a good pizza with fresh ingredients and a thin Italian-style crust.
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