(Photo: Kake Pugh)

Pizza, like most excellent things, comes in three main forms. You’ve got your fat American guilty pleasure take-away for a lazy night in front of X-factor type; the dismal ‘can’t afford anything better and shouldn’t have bothered’ frozen kind; and then you have your Italians, the royalty of the pizza world. Fire and Stone is home to the later type but as a regal delight the service doesn’t shape up.

With a Sunday menu offering a drink and pizza for £6, and a weekly evening offer for half  a bottle of wine and a pizza for £10, you can’t go wrong on price, and the menu is, for any pizza fanatic, a mesmerising array of originality and taste. Each pizza has its own place name and ingredients to match. I went for the Casablanca (rosemary infused mascarpone cheese sauce, wild mushrooms sautéed in garlic butter, Roquefort blue cheese, grated mozzarella topped with toasted walnuts and parsley) and my friend the Cairo (roasted red and yellow peppers, courgettes, aubergines, balsamic roasted red onions, mozzarella and tomato sauce topped with crumbled goats cheese and pine nuts.) so we could go half-half – surely a rule for pizza dining? And we were impressed. This isn’t a Franco Manca or Carluccios-standard establishment but the topping:tomato:bread ratio is good, and with options ranging from a full-on English breakfast topped pizza, to your standard margarita, everyone will be satisfied.

That is of course, if they bring you the right pizza, and if on a Saturday night they don’t, then don’t expect the mistake to be corrected. This happened to a friend who’s much desired Peking was substituted for a Lombok. When she politely pointed this out, she was told there was no time to make another despite two hours remaining until closing – the pits of restaurant service. On my visit they forgot the garlic bread and the fire alarm went off twice – not conducive to an enjoyable night out and not what you expect from a professional restaurant.

But regardless of the service, I will return because the pizza’s damn good, the price is faultless, and the ambience ideal for a night out with friends. If you know your Pizza Expresses from your brbs and are partial to the more experimental end of pizza design then Fire and Stone should not be missed, but if you’re trying to impress someone or bad service makes you see red then it’s probably best you avoid it.

Good for: A budget catch-up with friends

Bad for: Impressing a date or family members

The cost: Pizzas range from around £7-14 and offers are often available

Fire and Stone

31/32 Maiden lane, Covent Garden, WC2E 7JS