This time next week I will be in Sicily — an MBA trip with a side order of good food and la dolce vita. I might have preferred a non-Italian destination, therefore, for dinner this evening, but only a churl would deny a 17 year old her choice of restaurant on her birthday.
So, we went to our local pizzeria. It’s Zizzi’s in Paddington Street, just off Baker Street. It had a warm ambience, unless you were too close to the door in wintertime, in which case it was a bit draughty. It had sturdy wooden furniture, and a big wood-burning oven in an open kitchen with a rear wall that appeared lined with logs. Before the recent makeover it was usually busy. Yes, it’s a chain, owned by a firm that owns a few other brands, but it’s managed to stay clear of the bottom end of the market by providing better food and a more traditional decor and, by London standards, did so at a reasonable price.
And if you’re tired and justa wanna a pizza you’ve got a choice of Pizza Express, Zizzi and Ask, all Italian restaurant chains owned by the same company, and all to be found within a short walk.
Tonight was the first time we’d been since the restaurant closed recently for a redesign. We had tried to go on Valentine’s night, a party of 8 in all, but we turned on our heels, even though it was raining, when they announced they’d put the prices up for the evening (19% as far as I remember), and we weren’t the only ones to do so.
I was reminded again of the pleasure of going to a restaurant where you are recognized and where the proprietor wouldn’t dream of such a stunt, where your business is actively welcome–and you reciprocate by going more often and leaving larger tips.
Had I been on my own this evening I’d have walked immediately. It was half empty when it should have been close to full (8PM on a Sunday night). There seemed to be fewer staff. Our coats weren’t taken. The new design was pretentious. I didn’t need a sixth sense to know that this was going to be disappointing.
The rustic kitchen area had been redesigned to look like a superior kind of public lavatory, with a pizza oven in the middle of a wall of green tiles. The wooden tables and chairs had all been replaced with new black designer schlock straight from the pages of a Sunday magazine supplement. It photographs well and that’s about it; it will not wear so well. Well, I mustn’t be curmudgeonly. The seats now had thin little cushions. The menu had gone a little upmarket too, also in terms of prices. I had a pizza diavola and the salami on it was excellent, a definite improvement. I wouldn’t have minded the price increase if the restaurant hadn’t been vandalized. The service was not great and the cutlery and glassware were not perfectly spotless (however, the sample size was small). I had to fetch my own weapons from another table, or I’d have to sit and watch my pizza getting cold for … who knows how long?
We’ve had a home in the area for 10 years and visited often enough, so I asked for the manager and asked her if she’d had many comments on the design.
Some people like it, some people don’t.
So far only 3 restaurants have been given the new look, she said, and they aim for standardization. She gave us some preprinted comment cards, which I suspect we might not have received otherwise, but who knows? They read, in part, in effect,
Would you recommend Zizzi’s to a friend? If no, why didn’t you eat here before?
A language I no speak.
As we left, we passed a couple at the entrance filling in cards. I compared notes. They hated the new look and the new menu and wanted it back the way it used to be. They said they’d go to the one in Wigmore Street in future. I hadn’t known about it.
I think the hypothesis was that customers were not too price sensitive and would appreciate a new look. Instead, if tonight’s empty seats and reactions (5 out of 5 negative, admittedly a small sample) are anything to go by, it may be a lesson in how to misread your market, or on the benefit of doing some market research first. Interestingly, the review here (interior photos are new) focuses on cleanliness and on the negative aspects of the wood burning stove. I’ll take a little grubbiness, character, humanity, and some personal recognition over any sterile design any day.
I suppose there’s an upside. I will really appreciate the food in Sicily, and we’ll just have to forage further afield when we feel in the mood for Italian food. Alas, one hears about the recession in house prices all the time but never about restaurants becoming more affordable.
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[...] Last year I groused about a truly awful redesign of what used to be our most frequently visited pizzeria and we stopped going. There are some things I draw the line at, and dining in a place that resembles a pre-war public lavatory with green tiles is one. [...]