Pizza Express - Tonbridge

First visit to the Tonbridge restaurant. Lots of positives. Menu for the grandchildren was excellent at a very good price, £7.95. Service was good and very friendly. Food excellent. Only one big but, which was the price of one piece of garlic bread. £5.65. Seriously??

To begin with, the staff were extremely attentive and seated us promptly. Our drinks arrived promptly as well, despite them running out of Sauvignon Blanc. The pizzas were slightly smaller than usual, with delicious toppings, though the dough had a crispy bottom and a soft middle base. The rocket salad was disappointing, as it only had grated Parmesan instead of flakes.

I feel like they are starting to skimp on portions. I ordered a chicken pizza for £15 and it only had six pieces of chicken on it. The restaurant still has its bold color scheme, but I suspect that someone in charge is now being stingy with the ingredients. It's disappointing because the atmosphere is nice and the staff are great. However, it's disheartening to sit there and count how few chicken pieces are on your pizza, unable to believe that the chef would be so ungenerous.

I am a fan of Pizza Express, but I did not enjoy the food at this particular restaurant. The kitchen and toilets were also dirty, which was disappointing and unexpected.

We have eaten at this Pizza Express almost every week for over 10 years. That must be close to 500 visits. It is our go to place for the end of week family catch-up. Reliably, consistently good, both in terms of the food and the staff. And we have lived though various iterations of the menu in that time and several generations of staff. Not perfect, they occasionally produce food that is not great and staff are often young and in the process of being trained while earning little more than minimum wage. But they are just human. And speaking as someone who has eaten all over world, and in one year alone ate at every Michelin star Restuarant in London (a record I suspect), I remain impressed at a Restuarant that can turn out such tasty food week in and out, with a friendly welcome and generally good levels of efficiency. It may be that at peak times it all falls apart for some people, which I can imagine, but we always go off peak. So it remains part of our family life which we all look forward to and really enjoy pretty much every time. In fact I am genuinely looking forward to our next visit!