Fire & Stone Covent Garden

The Covent Garden Fire & Stone was the first to open for this group which has now spread outside of London. They claim to have the largest wood-fired pizza oven in the northern hemisphere. The menu is divided into the five continents.

Africa, Americas, Asia, Australasia, Europe each have around five pizzas which are supposed to reflect that part of the world. For example, in the Europe section you'll find a London pizza which seems to have a lot of the contents of a Full English Breakfast.

The restaurant is large, contemporary and lively and can get quite noisy. There's room for 250 diners and large groups can be accommodated. There's a party menu and a kids menu.

Check their website for regular deals including theatre and dining packages. I visited because I had a "2 pizzas for £10" voucher whereas full price pizzas are £8-10.

I ordered a Koh Samui pizza as, quite frankly, I've never had sweet potato and coconut sauce on a pizza and I don't expect I will again. When the menu stated "crisp fried Thai shallots" I wasn't expecting half a packet of dried, fried onions to be piled in the middle of my pizza.

My friend ordered a Florence pizza and was also disappointed as there was a lot of pepperoni but it was fatty and salty. Both pizzas had a lot of black crumbs on the base from the stone baking, and these black dots then peppered your teeth.

As we hadn't booked a table we were plonked near the toilets, in the middle of the aisle with people passing all around us. We asked to move to nearby free tables but was told these had been reserved.

Our drinks order was taken with our food order and the food came quickly - in around 10 minutes - the drinks came well after, even though we asked twice.

In the end I removed the 'Optional service charge' and the waitress said she understood why and that other diners remove it too. How sad that's she was so used to it.

Fire and Stone would be better with less choice on the menu but to get right what they do serve.

Address: 31-33 Maiden Lane, London WC2E 7JS

Telephone: 0844 371 2550

Official Website: www.fireandstone.com