We show why it really does pay to go large on National Pizza Day
We got busy with our rulers and show how different sizes measure up and provide costs per square inch
WANT to get more for your dough when indulging in a takeaway for National Pizza Day today?
To make sure your pizza pie is top value for money we got busy with our rulers.
We show how different sizes measure up and provide costs per square inch to show that sometimes it really does pay to go large.
Here, NICK PRITCHARD reveals which pizza takeaways are upper crust and which are top-heavy, and gives his ratings.
VERDICT: Thick stodgy dough that is loaded with toppings, a Domino’s pizza should come with an Alka Seltzer ’cos it’s great after a night on the tiles. You will not find a better hangover cure, though the pizza itself can be a bit stiff and tasteless.
3/5
VERDICT: About as far away from Italy as you can get. The flavour reminds me of my student days. Even if this is good value for money some cheaper options taste better. Though the Just Eat delivery service was speedy and top notch.
1/5
VERDICT: The dough is second to none, chewy and springy. Every now and then the crust is blistered and blackened where it has bubbled in the wood-fired oven. The tomato sauce has a zippy tang and the toppings all taste fresh.
5/5
VERDICT: This chunky pizza is the very definition of a guilty takeaway. Eating one is like watching a Fast & Furious movie – enjoyable when it’s on, but you still can’t shake the nagging feeling that you are wasting your time.
3/5
VERDICT: High Street staple Pizza Express has been offering takeaway pizzas for years now. The pizza is thin and well seasoned, but if you’re going to pay the same price as in the restaurant you may as well enjoy a proper evening out.
4/5
VERDICT: The tomato sauce is dull, the cheese bland and the topping is crispy at the edges, but otherwise uneventful. It’s a bit like the pizza equivalent of Coldplay – inoffensive but unremarkable. Not my favourite out of all the ones tested.
2.5/5
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VERDICT: This is very much in the same vein as the pizzas from Domino’s, but just not as tasty. The cheese is on the stringy side and not very flavoursome while the texture is like chewing plastic. Not impressed by this one at all.
1/5
VERDICT: Like Pizza Express, Italian chain Zizzi is attempting to muscle in on the takeaway game, flogging restaurant-quality food via online service Ubereats. Again it tastes great but I would rather eat out in the restaurant for the same price.
4/5
Pizza - history and numbers
- The ancient Greeks began putting food toppings on bread around 2,500 years ago
- Pizza was invented in Naples in the late 18th Century when poor people started adding tomato to their flat bread
- Five billion pizzas are sold worldwide every year, worth £91billion
- A 16in pizza is four times as big as an 8in pizza. Because it’s a circle its area increases with the square of the radius
- The priciest pizza ever cost £2,150, made by Glaswegian pizza artist Domenico Crolla
- A 13,500 sq ft pizza was made in Italy in 2012 – it weighed more than 23 tonnes
- Cristian Dumitru from Romania ate 90 kilos of pizza in a week in 2006, a world record
- The fairest way to cut a pizza was devised by mathematicians Joel Haddley and Stephen Worsley in 2016 – divide it into curved shapes as above so that everyone gets the same amount of crust and topping