Pizza Pilgrims to open first site outside London
Pizza Pilgrims is to open a permanent site on London's West India Quay in April, followed by a further site in Oxford later this year.
The West India Quay site will be located in a Grade I-listed former dock warehouse and will be the group's biggest so far, at 174 covers. Current plans for the site include installing a bowling alley on the restaurant's terrace and a tie-in with Nintendo that will allow diners to book a sofa for the night and play a selection of console games.
Speaking to The Caterer, co-founder Thom Elliott said: "We absolutely fell in love with the site and felt that if we were going to do it, we need to make it a different, bigger space. We are quietly calling it the Pizza Playground, because it's something opposite to that kind of formal dining you used to get in Canary Wharf."
Founded by Thom and his brother James Elliot in 2012 as a food van in Berwick Street Market, the group specialises in authentic Neapolitan-style pizzas and now operates six restaurants in London. The forthcoming Oxford restaurant will the first outside the capital and is set to open in the rebuilt Westgate Shopping Centre.
"They razed the shopping centre to the ground and rebuilt it in this glorious recreation with an amazing terrace, a Curzon cinema and 11 restaurants. It is a terrifying position for us [to open outside London] but a new challenge," said Thom.
Pizza Pilgrims to open in Shoreditch >>