Then, as fate would have it, you happen to wander past one of our specially selected restaurants and spot this poster casually hanging out in front of the entrance.

“What?” you think, “Do my eyes deceive me? Zizzi is offering any classic pizza or pasta for only £5.95 from 3pm – 5pm…and it’s only 4pm!”

Well, my friend, rest assured…it’s true. We’ve done a little investigating and picked a handful of restaurants we think this offer will really thrive in. Whenever any of the following restaurants are displaying this saucy little number outside their entrance, then come in and try any of our classic pizzas or pastas for only £5.95 between the hours of 3 and 5pm:

• Zizzi Twickenham
• Zizzi Finchley road
• Zizzi Canterbury
• Zizzi Basingstoke
• Zizzi Cambridge
• Zizzi Guildford
• Zizzi Metro
• Zizzi Leith
• Zizzi Meadowhall
• Zizzi Highcross

So next time you’re out on the town; keep an eye out and be vigilant our little Zizzi vigilantes…no wait, that came out wrong…

They’re also competing for the opportunity of a lifetime – being mentored by chef and food writer, Gizzi Erskine.

Gizzi is widely known as the host of Cook Yourself Thin, author of Kitchen Magic and as a leader in the pop-up restaurant and supper club scene. She’s agreed to help us provide this unique opportunity and we can’t think of anybody else we’d rather have on board.

Gizzi had already established herself as a professional body piercer in Camden when she realised she had bigger dreams. At 23 years-old, she handed in her notice at the Cold Steel, and began training at the prestigious Leith’s School of Food and Wine. She graduated the top of her year and later won a placement at BBC Good Food magazine, where she became a credited food writer and stylist.

Our four finalists – Joe, Jenny, Louise and Daniella demonstrated a real talent for cooking but, most importantly, they showed us the enthusiasm and flair we’ve been searching for. Several weeks ago we set them the challenge of recreating Gizzi’s signature risotto, but with an added personal twist.  After 7 intense hours in our very own Hell’s Kitchen, the judges emerged and crowned Joe triumphant.

Joe is currently working towards creating a seasonal three course menu for all our restaurants; but don’t worry, we haven’t just thrown him in the deep end, sink or swim style. Throughout the whole process, Gizzi will be his mentor and together they’ll cook up our next featured menu. Our Executive Chef, Angelo, and our Gelato Queen, Kitty Travers, will also be on stand-by to lend a helping hand whenever needed.

Joe and Gizzi’s three course menu is set to make its debut in a couple of months so watch this space – we’ll be shouting it from the rooftops as soon as it arrives!

But we’re not talking about the sun-drenched beaches of Nice or the fast and furious streets of Monaco….

Tucked away in a side road of Cannes you’ll find a small ice cream parlour called Vilfeu, where our Artisan Ice-Cream Chef, Kitty Travers, first tasted the Poppy Seed and Saffron Ice-Cream that would change her life.

After finishing as a waitress in Cannes, Kitty returned to the UK and landed a job as a pastry chef at St John Restaurant. It was there that she founded La Grotta Ices, making and selling hand-made frozen desserts to Londoners from the back of her scooter and she never looked back.

Because of Kitty and her love of the frozen desserts, we now have a quality line of Gelato and Sorbetti desserts on offer. Our Fior di Latte, Crema, Cioccolata and Pistachio have all been developed in collaboration with Calon Wen cooperative dairy farms in Wales. By working with Calon Wen, we know that the milk is organic and comes from a select few farms – it’s so select that the farmers know their cows by name. That’s pretty cool.

But Kitty’s greatest Zizzi triumph so far has to be the creation of our Blood Orange Sorbetti. After toiling away in developmental kitchens, Kitty mastered the ratio of sweet to tart perfectly and we couldn’t have been happier with the result. It’s proved the most popular during our summer months due to its crisp flavour, but it certainly holds its own when the weather cools down as a refreshing tea-time treat.

Kitty isn’t just behind the scenes though – she’s graciously lent her talents over the years to provide live ice-cream making demonstrations to captivated audiences. Last year we participated in Jamie Oliver’s Feastival where Kitty’s live show proved to be one of the more popular attractions over that weekend…oof, sorry Jamie.

And it’s not only London based; just the other week she travelled up to Harrogate to teach the team and customers her gelato making method and gave a handful of volunteers the chance to try it out.

Kitty Travers was one of our first Fresh Talents and is, now, very much one of us. To take a look at Kitty’s Gelato and Sorbetti range check out our menu at www.zizzi.co.uk/food.

We soon realised that we couldn’t continue with this dessert and our Executive Chef, Angelo, decided to pull it off the menu and find a better dish. After all, Torta Limone is a classic Italian dessert and we can’t have ours being used as a weapon…or a tiny Frisbee. 

When we asked Angelo to take notes while searching for the perfect torta, we had no idea it would soon become this epic journey: taking him to the brink of insanity and back. True story: we found a full page of notes that just said “All work and no play makes Angelo a dull boy”.

But through his determination ,and sheer stubbornness, we found ‘the lemon tart to die for’.

To get them in the mood for the Torta Limone search, Angelo took his team off to Sicily to try their famous dessert. We have to admit, this supplier had some pretty impressive lemons. And his tart?  It was a simple beauty; just sweet enough, just tart enough, and a thick yolky gold colour blended with sun drenched lemons.

Angelo returned home with a new mission – replicate that tart in our restaurants. Simple enough, right? Apparently not…we pulled some highlights from Angelo’s notes to shed some light on the subject -

Week one:
Too sugary…like sticking your face in a tub of confectionary sugar. Not to mention the filling’s runny consistency slops over the side of the pastry when you try to move it anywhere. Useless.

Week three:
Far too sour! I’m pretty certain someone just cut a lemon in half, stuck it in a pastry base  and called it a day. They’re fired…as soon as I can feel my taste buds again.

Week five:
We’ve gone completely in the wrong direction. I didn’t want our bases to pull out our customers teeth but, San Antoni’, my customers will need a straw to drink up this base…it just sort of slowly drips off the spoon. Maybe we mix it with Gelato and call it a Dessert Soup? Is that a thing? I’ll look in to that… “

And in the 6^th week, Angelo and his crew finally found it – the perfect Torta Limone. At first sight it looked perfect – not too pale, not too runny, not covered in a mountain of sugar…promising.  It mimicked the sweetness of the Sicilian tart while maintaining the tangy lemon undertones.

Needless to say, Angelo celebrated with buckets of Limoncello like a true Italian. He’s finally found a Torta Limone that he’s proud to put his name on and we’d love you to come try for yourself.

Don’t know where your nearest Zizzi is? Find it here: www.zizzi.co.uk/venuefinder

The Lamb Shoulder is slowly roasted in our wood oven until it is virtually falling off the bone and then laid out on a bed of cannellini beans, sweet peppers and rosemary… delicious.

Crispy Pork Belly is roasted in the oven served with spring greens sautéed in a garlic butter.

If neither of those two peaked your interest, then that brings us onto Pollo Diavola, a dish difficult to say but easy to clean off, with harissa and Roquito chilli making their voices heard. The chicken used is actually Red Tractor Chicken meaning that if you wanted to you could trace it back to the farm where is was reared, so you know that we haven’t been flying your chicken around the world to get it to you. Also it is less than 650 calories, not bad for some spicy spatchcock.
Maybe fish is more to your taste. If it is then you won’t have to look anywhere else as our Fish Stew is jam-packed with Sea Bass, Oak roasted Salmon, calamari, mussels and prawns. Served with a generous chunk of ciabatta to make sure you soak up every last drop.

So as you can see Italian cuisine has a lot more to offer than just the two p’s. Hope we’ve persuaded you to go a bit left field next time you visit Zizzi. You maverick you!