Restaurants

This is the Pizza Express chain's pasta-specialising offshoot, and every inch the imitator of its bigger sibling. No bad thing. Inoffensive, Italian-ish art adorns bright walls, customers eat from shiny marble table tops, and service – if not smiling – is swift. The food is Pizza Express-reliable, too. A vast portion of penne with a creamy mushroom sauce was very good: the pasta well cooked, the mushrooms plentiful. It almost finished us off. With a prime Covent Garden location, this branch is very much a tourist magnet, and often busy, but good use is made of the site: windows looking out on to Shaftesbury Avenue on one side and Monmouth Street on the other allow for plenty of light, and makes the restaurant perfect for a spot of people-watching over a meal.

Time Out Cheap Eats in London Guide 2007