I walked past Dominos holding a box of Pizza Express’ pizza.

It has been all over the vegan/vegetarian/dairy-free cyberspace that Pizza Express has officially released a pizza containing a vegan mozzarella cheese. As I am away from home and have no access to a kitchen, this was the perfect opportunity to give their new pizza a try. It was also a healthier transition from the deep fried vegan Co-Op doughnuts I had been stuffing my face with all day.

Unfortunately, I could not find the Vegan Giardiniera pizza on the Pizza Express website, which almost made me lose hope. However, I decided to give them a call and was more than delighted to find out that indeed, they did sell the new pizza (they just did not realise it was not up on the website yet). I placed my order, which cost around £10 and went about my day till it was time to pick it up.

I am someone who buys pizzas in large and XXL sizes, so it was a bit of a difference and a disappointment to see a small-medium sized pizza box when I went over to collect my dinner. I did eat so many doughnuts, though, so maybe this was for the best.

I got back to my hotel room, opened up the box and was greeted by a delicious looking pizza topped with passata, purple/red onions, black olives, asparagus, artichokes, fresh herbs and what looked like, but was not cheese. I picked up a slice that was a little too thin at its end (causing some of the toppings to fall off) and was happily surprised by the taste of garlic produced by the garlic oil that must have been drizzled over the pizza. Few know that my favourite pizza topping is, in fact, garlic.

The pizza was rather delightful and the flavours were well balanced. Although I enjoyed the pizza, the “cheese” might be disappointing to some. This vegan cheese, made from sprouting brown rice, is not stretchy like the conventional pizza cheese. It had more of a creamy consistency, however, the creaminess and its taste are not overpowering like some “cheeses” used by other pizza parlours.

In general, I was very impressed with this pizza although I would have loved to have a bigger size of it.

LickYourPlate worthy? Yes, I believe so.

*Images from Pizza Express