Like your food fast? Pizza Storm easily fits that bill. It uses the human-conveyor-belt approach seen in most London burrito joints: you approach the counter, one latex-gloved pair of hands smears your chosen sauce on to a base, others layer on toppings (veggies, meats, cheeses), another takes payment and so on. The final link in the chain has the plum job, satisfyingly sliding pies into the gas-fired pizza oven. On my visit, the time from ordering to having a cooked pizza brought over was around ten minutes. That’s pretty quick for pizza.
The bases are ultra-thin (presumably to keep cooking times down) but disappointingly bland. Happily, an eclectic range of toppings – from butternut squash to salty chorizo and fresh baby spinach – was full-flavoured enough to compensate. I also liked the price (£5.95 for a margherita, £8.45 for unlimited toppings, £9.95 for a bottle of wine). Just give the claggy coleslaw and synthetic soft-serve a swerve.
And don’t get any ideas about lingering, either. While the teenage staff are cheery and welcoming – taking sudden influxes of shoppers and movie-goers from nearby Southside shopping centre in their stride – the semi-industrial space has lights so bright you’ll wish your 3D glasses were proper shades. For a quick pitstop, though, it does the job.