Wednesday 4 November 2009

Fire and Stone

Another work lunch, not a working lunch but a lunch with colleagues. There were rather a lot of us and we needed somewhere nearby, WC2 area, able to accommodate a large group and not be longer than 1 hour.

This time we descended upon Fire and Stone on Maiden Lane, I refrained from gazing longingly at Rules, if only, and averted my eyes.

The service was poor, we were given the choice of 5 pizzas, here they name them after a city or country, I went for the Athena with roasted pepper sauce, spinach, feta cheese, pinenuts and pesto. I tentatively asked whether I might order from the so called a la carte menu (I quite fancied the superfood salad) but, slightly missing the point, the waitress brashly informed that the pizzas come with a side salad.


For the lunch special you get your chosen pizza with a beer or a glass of wine for £10.25. Reasonable I suppose, the food was served very swiftly.

The pizza itself was poor, an over oily base was doused in pesto and I my neighbour commented that I might well turn into popeye that afternoon with the glut of spinach throw on top. There was not much cheese, thick, barely warm (and really pretty hard) slices of tomato and the roasted pepper sauce was doing a fine job masquerading as a plain passata.

I downed my wine, left almost the entire crust, I am so not that person, and left the building with plenty of time to spare before the 2pm meeting. All other pizzas I viewed looked similarly underwhelming.

I'm itching to try the newly opened Pizza East which, by all accounts, is now the pizza to beat in London. For pizza in Central London I still think Rossopomodoro is the best i've tried.

Fire and Stone
31 Maiden Lane
WC2
4/10

Fire & Stone on Urbanspoon

9 comments:

Chris Pople said...

I presume you mean 4/10, not 4/5, given the awful food on display?

Fire and Stone is truly diabolical. I went once - never again.

Boo said...

oops, I sure do, hideous. What's with the stupid (and, in some cases, seemingly quite random) choice of names.

Thanks Chris, shall change that right away!

Kavey said...

Went to a branch when Fire & Stone first opened, infact I can't quite remember but it may have been just a single place then... or possibly they had 2.
UUUGH.
Never again!
:(

Boo said...

Not memorable really is it?! I'll remember only the rudeness of the waitress and the departing of the colleague (it was a leaving lunch)

Uugh I agree!

Laissez Fare said...

Hi, I've been there once for their lunch deal. Was a bit misled as to the fact that there were only a few pizzas that were actually included in the deal (of course, none of the ones I wanted!) and was really disappointed by the quality of the pizzas. For a place with an oven looking like that, and looking trendy (compared to most pizzerias/chains in central London), you'd expect it to be at least tasty...which it definitely wasn't. I'm not returning anytime soon.

Helen said...

Urgh, worst pizza I have ever tasted in my life. Truly vile. Where do they get off offering those toppings anyway? Chicken tikka pizza etc? And the bases! Oh deary me.

Mr Noodles said...

How could they make such an ugly looking pizza? I reckon my 3 year old niece could do a better job with the toppings. So glad I've never been here!

Boo said...

LF - The lunch deal is overpriced considering the vileness of the food and the lack of choice. I'll definitely be staying well away too!

Helen - I have no clue, what makes them think people will actually want to have the combos they offer?? Yuck.

Mr Noodles - children could do better, it's true. Stay well away!

Emily said...

I was served a vegetarian pizza at fire and stone which had bits of lamb mince all over it. It took them so long to remake it that the rest of the table had been finished for ages before my pizza came back.

Then our waiter avoided our table for the rest of the night so we were unable to order any more wine or ask for the bill.

When the bill eventually came, our drinks had been comped, which would have been great if we'd been able to have more than one glass of wine each.