Fire & Stone

There is a huge number of pizzerias in London and if you want proper, straightforward Italian pizza, then you are probably better off going elsewhere. However, you can hardly argue with two pizzas for a tenner (F&S always have offers on – check their website) and I haven't come across anywhere else that does the kind of pizza toppings that they do.
Today was my third visit to F&S and frankly, the best so far. The dough is quite different to a classic Italian pizza base; thicker and more breadlike but still quite light. The theme of the menu is geographical; the pizzas are influenced by the different continents (Africa, Australiasia, The Amercias etc.) and the options are quite varied. This kind of pizza isn't going to appeal to everyone but the choices at F&S make a real change. I had the ‘Lombok’ (prawns, hoi sin sauce, mozzarella, red peppers and spring onions) and it was really tasty.
The restaurant itself is usually busy (there are often queues so they must be doing something right) and because of the minimalist decor, it can be quite noisy. If you're bored of your normal pizza place and go armed with a voucher, then it if definitely worth coming here.

Decoration : industrial-look walls and 25 foot high concrete block ceiling : cold, unfriendly and industrial. And you can't even see the fire in the oven.
Drinks : Fruit juice (pear) watered down.
Pizzas : even the simplest pizza to make on earth (tomatoe base, mozza, basil, olive, artichoke) was utterly wrong : I had to send the first one back to the kitchen specifying "the tomoatoe base of the menu? Yeah, well I'd like it on my pizza…and the mozarella and tomatoes on top? yeah, well they need to see the oven at some point in the preparation, and the basil?…well just make the effort of spreading it over the whole pizza) : the base of a pizza is supposed to be bread dough. Not some sort of grainy dry crust. Cheese was raw!! not melted. I had about 2 bush worth of basil in a ball in the midlle of the pizza…the epitome of wrong for a pizza, which should put the chef to shame.
Side : “Tomatoe mozarella and basil in balsamic dressing” : sounds nice isn't it?…well imagine receiving a bowl with a 2-fist-big tomatoe cut in 4 quarter, with 1 (one, uno) slice of mozarella.
Shocking!

A well done pizza is a delicacy, an art, a beautiful thing to make and eat. This restaurant is a shame, should be closed down or receive the visit of Gordon.
Praise to the staff for an acceptable service in such a place.

###Go to Maletti if you want the best pizza this side of Milan.###

Table of nine of us booked a table in advance at F & S. We were told that a booking of this size could only choose from the set menu (choice of 3 starters, 5 pizzas and 3 deserts). Price of £22.95 each and we were told this included a glass of wine. We arrived and table was ready, nice place, good decor, very busy and a nice buzz…So far so good. Then were were given the set menu to choose from. Very poor choice, all pizzas with meat on also had roast potatoes on? Pizza with roast potatoes? Thats a carbohydrate overload, why? Also all pizzas had sour cream, chilli jam or some other wet sauce on (pizza's are their business so we trusted the combinations may work). We struggled to make a choice and all ordered with a few doubts as to what to expect.

We then compared this menu to the normal menu, the actual price was more expensive per head by going for the set menu rather than the standard (Standard menu prices were; starters £4.50, pizza's £9, sweet £4.50 plus a glass of wine; house red/white was £3.70 a glass, this was less than the £22.95 we were being charged for the set menu!!!?!?!??) We asked our waiter if we could order from the normal menu as the choice was so poor on the set, we were told no way at all could we do this as (and I quote) ‘we order our stocks in advance knowing who is choosing from what menu’. This was ridiculous, there was a queue of people outside without bookings waiting to get in, how could F & S know what they were going to choose?? Anyway, ordered from the set menu as we had no choice.

Starters being honest were OK, nothing great but OK. Then the main course the pizza'a (which is after all is what F & S are all about). They were simply awfull. Un-edible for all of us and we are 9 men, men will eat ANY pizza! 3 of us were so unhappy, we sent them back to the kitchen, 1 just left the whole thing less one mouthfull and the rest of us, trying not to cause a scene politely scraped all the topping off the pizza and just eat the base. The toppings just did not work on any level (and we can all cook, we appreciate good food whether traditional or modern), roast potatoes and a huge dollop of sour cream, the Christmas pizza (JUST DONT EVER DO IT!!) was covered in a sickly sweet, and cinamon infused cranberry sauce, again sour cream along with Pumpkin and turkey so thin, you could not even tast it. All you could taste was cranberry sauce.

We fed our comments politely back to the waiter, who simply shrugged and walked off. We chased our included glass of wine for the 3rd time, and by the time it arrived the main course was over. We were given (no option to choose even a colour of wine) a cheap sparkling white. We were all red-drinkers so this was of no use or interest to us. Again we were told there is no option/negotiation. Sweet, as with starter was OK only, not great or even good (Oh, forgot to say that one of us found a huge hair within their half-eaten chocolate brownie!). We ordered 3 extra bottles of red to drink as well at a staggering £25 a bottle for a very average tasting French table wine.

Total Bill was £375 (including the suggested 12.5% SC). We paid cash and did not pay the service charge. We told the waiter why, not for the service but for the poor food, poor choice and extra charges already faced by eating from the set menu. He told us he would need to ‘clear this was OK with the manager’ and said he would bring them over to our table. We were keen to feed our comments back to someone in authourity so we waited for the manager. Surprise surprise, they never arrived and the waiter never came back either, so we left.

This is a HUGE place with 2 floors that must seat 100 people each. This means that unfortunatley you are treated a little like cattle, quick in, quick feed, average service and the quick out. On leaving we bumped into two couples having a conversation about how poor their meal had been as well, so this appeared to be not only us that had experinced dissapointment overall.

In summary, a very dissapointing night. F & S has been in Cov Garden for a couple of years now I believe. If this is so they have reached a stage of complacency. The waiters did not care what we thought of the food, we had limited, if any choice to choose what we wanted simply because we were a table of 9. I would of thought most of the competition would relish to seat a table of 9 rather than treat them as second class customers, as we were.

Bad news spreads faster than good, none of us will ever eat there again and we will spread the word. There are many a fantastic pizza eatery in London; Strada & Eco to name but two. Choose wilsely, from what we could see, F & S are appealing to the tourist trade in Cov Garden. As a tourist, if you dont like the food, they dont care, you dont live there so they are not going to lose your future business. Well, they've lost ours and I am sure unless things improve, many others in the future…

Diners queued in the street as the receptionist went up to the restaurant before each guest and cleared a table to bring them to. The bottle of wine we chose was later said to be no longer on the list, and they had not yet changed their menu. The alternative was very poor. Antipasti were good and tasty, but a plate for each diner would have been easier than both scrabbling to cut meats on the serving plate. Pizzas were small and heavy, with lots of very oily vegetables on them. Chilli oil tasted only of oil. The table next to us asked their waiter for black pepper when he brought their pizzas, but he just walked off in a dream – they had to get up and fetch their own condiments. On the plus side, waitresses were cheery and helpful, if a little under-trained.