Valentine Warner at PizzaExpress

From humble beginnings in a Wardour Street kitchen in 1965, PizzaExpress has now expanded to over 400 outlets across the UK, quirkily populating an array of previously dilapidated husks along the way (old churches, dairies, banks etc).

Such success is due to many factors, but one trick that can’t have done any harm is the utilisation of celebrity chefs, brought in to add their own tastes and stylistic touches to the menu. Previous guests have included Theo Randall and Francesco Mazzei, but it is now the turn of Valentine Warner – perhaps most famous for his BBC series What to Eat Now – to take the reins. The choice could not be more apt, as Valentine is very familiar with PizzaExpress, having spent time there as a waiter in one of the West London branches in the ’90s. Okay, he was promptly fired, but that just catalysed the notion that he was indeed better off cooking the food rather than serving it.

To that end, two pizzas al Valentine are to be featured on the menu at Pizza Express in the coming months. The first is the Puttanesca (£10.75), a combination of salty marinated anchovies, capers, olives, chilli, garlic, lemon and fresh oregano, and the second is a Fennel & Salami creation (£11.75) packed with fennel salami, fresh fennel (placed on after it is baked), fennel seeds, passata, mozzarella, chilli flakes, rocket, lemon and grated Grana Padano cheese.

Customers are able to watch Valentine making the pizzas – and discussing their inspiration – in a ‘Virtual Chef’s Table’ app available for smartphones, but that’s not enough for pedantic old me, so I jumped at the chance of an evening of pizza making with Mr Warner at the Holborn branch of PizzaExpress. Cue dough flinging, cheese dropping and tomatoey-trousers as my fellow foodies and I attempted to recreate Valentine’s pizzas under his careful supervision.

And it was well worth it: the fennel and salami pizza was absolutely delicious, with a real depth of flavour that came from the tangy cheese, meaty salami and aniseed-ladened fennel. It was so good, in fact, that I ate all of mine in one go before I even tasted the next pizza. And I have since made it again at home. Twice.

But then there was the Puttanesca. First of all, the lack of cheese on the pizza left a taste blackhole for me, but even if that is more your style, it was was simply too bitter and salty. Of course this was made by another foody person in attendance and not a qualified PizzaExpress chef, but it was the ingredients that didn’t quite gel for me, not the methods used (eg adding too much of an individual ingredient etc).

Thus it was a 50:50 experience for me, but maybe some of you might like the bitterness of the Puttanesca. Quite frankly though, as you can only eat one pizza when you go to visit next time, why not just be a good little reader and order the fennel and salami masterpiece?

Go on. For me.

For more information visit the PizzaExpress website.