Pizza Express, High Street, Northallerton

1:24pm Friday 14th March 2008

I'M a big fan of Pizza Express, the nationwide chain of restaurants which has perfected the art of chic and cheerful.

Seven pounds is a lot to pay for a lump of dough, some mozzarella cheese, tomato and assorted other bits and pieces of your choice, but I've never begrudged it because the restaurants have always been the sort of places you want to hang around in. The firm has few peers in creating a cool and contemporary ambience in ordinary buildings.

When they get their hands on character premises, the result is even better.

Despite it being a chain of restaurants, with identical menus, every one has an individuality which makes even the snobbiest, styleconscious foodie happy to patronise them.

The Pizza Express train has now arrived in Northallerton, taking over the ill-fated and shortlived McCoy's, which took over from the ill-fated and short-lived Y'Thai which took over from some other restaurant whose name I've now forgotten but was also not a tremendous success.

It appears as though the Pizza Express formula may work where others have failed. Last Thursday, a couple of weeks after its opening, the place was nearly packed, which is not the sort of thing that goes on midweek in Northallerton.

Mind, this may be just the novelty factor, because as we arrived at the door, a group of people were leaving and advised us against entering, one saying: "The service is b****** c***." Again, it's not the sort of thing one expects to come across in Northallerton.

That may have been a bit of an exaggeration, but from the moment we sat down there was a strong sense of imminent chaos abroad.

The waiting staff were all young, highly personable and a pleasure to talk to, but they didn't seem to know what they were doing, at least not all the time.

They had an uncanny knack of bringing a menu and then seemingly forgetting that the diner might want to order something from it.

At one point every table seemed have people holding menus looking round expectantly while the entire waiting staff huddled round the till. What were they doing? Deciding who to ignore or spill coffee over next?

In our case, when we had ordered, my starter arrived but Sylvia's didn't.

I started on my salsiccia al forno (£4.35), a relatively new item on the menu. It was a tapas-style stew of sausage, cannellini beans, mushrooms in tomato, garlic and chilli sauce. It was hot and spicy, the sausage was meaty and the sauce could be soaked up with the little pieces of ciabatta which accompanied it.

Sylvia looked on forlornly until we managed to grab someone's attention.

The explanation offered, with profuse apologies, was that the order of garlic bread and mozzarella had not been rung through the till and it would arrive very shortly, without charge. It duly did and was very good.

So were our main course choices of a La Reine pizza (ham, olives and mushrooms - £7.35) and a mixed salad (£2.95) for Sylvia and a Salad Nicoise (£7.95) for me.

We were then offered the dessert menu which, perhaps because we accepted it rather half-heartedly having eaten our fill, prompt the waiting staff to ignore us for the best part of ten minutes. By this time I was ready for a little something which was exactly what a strangely-titled Cafe Reale (£2.95) offered, namely a little bowl of baby figs in a beautifully-unctuous syrup topped with a teaspoon of mascarpone and accompanied by a coffee of my choice, an espresso.

Sylvia had good latte, spoilt by the cup being over-filled, and by the time the waitress reached our table a good proportion of it was in the saucer. She was sweet thing and apologised profusely but by this time our patience was beginning to wear a little thin.

Our meal had been accompanied by an excellent bottle of Prosecco (£16.99), chosen from an exclusively Italian list and that brought our bill, minus Sylvia's starter, to £44.

Great food, lovely staff, let's hope they get themselves sorted out.