On the table in front of me was a pizza that looked like it had been assembled by a short-sighted chef who had picked up any ingredient he could lay his hands on and place them on top of the base in a completely random arrangement with no care at all for presentation.
That is entirely correct, for I was the chef who had made my own pizza at an event at Pizza Express on Corn Street organised with the restaurant chain in conjunction with the dating website mysinglefriend.com.
The partnership of Pizza Express and mysinglefriend.com was a perfect match. Studies have shown that 80 per cent of people think that doing an activity during a date helps the conversation flow easier, and that was certainly proved by me with my inept attempts at being a pizza chef.
My chef’s hat fell off onto the girl on my right’s lovingly-made creation. Most of the flour I was using went over the girl to my left. And then to top it off my artfully-slung airbound pizza almost hit the girl opposite me in the face.
There was about 30 of us at the event and after a few awkward introductions and making small talk upstairs, we were split up into three groups to make the pizzas. A real Pizza Express chef was in charge of each table, expertly showing us how to kneed and stretch the dough into a sphere, and spread out the tomato paste.
It was then up to us to choose the ingredients. My creation involved chicken, goat’s cheese, pepperoni, peppers and a few too many anchovies, which completely dominated the taste. I certainly would not be winning the current competition which could see a customer’s creation appear on the Pizza Express menu.
With the prosecco flowing, it was a very fun night. But the chef who made my pizza should not be allowed anywhere near a bowl of ingredients any time soon.
Pizza Express, 35 Corn Street. 0117 930 0239.
