Pizza Pilgrims
PARCHED LIFE
Within a couple of weeks of Pizza Hut announcing they were closing roughly half their 132 sites in the UK, Pizza Pilgrims opened their 26th restaurant and their first in Birmingham. My grumblings of ‘it’s just another chain’ have surprisingly elicited an almost blanket response of deep love for it from friends and family. I’m keen to get myself ‘educated’ and get in with the ‘in crowd’.
There are six of us meeting in the city centre, on our way to watch football and as everyone is passing through New Street Station it’s the prefect opportunity… just the 4th day since they opened (after a few weeks of soft launch). Mid-morning, I try and book online but it’s not letting me have a table for 6 at 6pm, so I email a request, as suggested. I’ve not heard by 5, so head into town early to get us booked in. So far so good, even if that means I’m 30 minutes early for everyone.
Brash menus
We’re all in at 6 on the dot, so we’ve got about an hour to eat and get a couple of pints in and I’ve clocked the lesser spotted Moretti Sale di Mare on draught. We also order some snacks for the table whilst deliberating the pizzas.
Pizza Pilgrims Birmingham
After 10 minutes our waiter returns, reporting there’s no Sale di Mare, so we order standard Morettis and our pizzas. 10 minutes later she’s back and it turns out there’s no gas, so they can’t do any draught beers. By the time she returns with the drinks menus (about another 5 minutes), our shared starters have arrived. Without letting her leave the table, we all order a bottle of Ichnusa lager at £5.50 a pop.
Artichokes Fritti
Fried globe artichokes in a panko ‘crust’ are disappointing. It leads me to wonder why even fry artichokes any way other than the Roman way (fried twice ‘alla giudia’); this is a different beast completely with all its subtle flavour completely suffocated and barely even fake crunch. It’s like eating hot, fried lumpy wallpaper paste; seemingly just a foil for the garlic and herb dip. Meh.
‘Schiaffo’ Pickled Cucumbers
The ‘smacked’ cucumbers have clearly been punished by someone with an aversion to hurting vegetables… so basically just blocks of cucumber in a light chilli oil and herby vinaigrette.
As the first two pizzas are brought to the table, about 35 minutes after we arrived, we’ve still not been brought any beers and our waiter is nowhere to be seen. Eventually, after going to find another waiter (by which point we’ve now all got pizzas) the bottles appear.
Smoky Aubergine Parmigiana
We’ve got six different pizzas and everybody’s happy. Mine’s a salsiccia and friarielli onto which I’ve drizzled my hot honey dip. It’s a very decent pizza; the double fermented dough has a good, light bite on it, crusts are pillowy and dalmatian spotted, the topping is generous —in my case, sausage, friarielli sautéed with garlic and chilli, smoked mozzarella and basil—and there’s no soggy bottom.
Salsiccia & Friarielli
Anticipating we’ll need more beer and time’s getting tight, we order another round to lubricate the final push towards finishing the plate. In less than five minutes they’re with us… but at room temperature, straight out the box. At £5.50 a bottle. No mate… and I’m now rueing that I chose not to drive.
When we ask for the bill, fair play, they’re only ‘charging us for the pizzas’ so it’s £16.50 each with service charge, whilst that’s been somewhere between negligent and chaotic. Unbelievable really, that either they’d not ordered enough gas or no one knows how to change it. These are things you’d hope their soft launch would have ironed out, including thinking it’s OK to serve warm bottles of lager at £5.50.
Then, with impeccable comic timing at exactly the same time (19.10) that we’re paying up, I receive an email confirming our booking at 18.00 with a note apologising they only just saw the booking request.
Pizza Pilgrims Birmingham
Overlooking the concourse at New Street Station will serve them well, not least as their ‘facilities’ are the Grand Central public toilets, a 5-minute walk away. But what grates most is its Italian caricature styling, that sits bang in the middle of three-way Venn diagram of soft play café, kitsch and Disney. All that’s missing is a metre long pepper mill.
Would I go back? Possibly, but just for a pizza and a pint of the Cristalli di Sale and in a particular set of circumstances, involving near starvation and a train drivers’ walkout. That said, Rudy’s is barely a stone’s throw away... just a further five minutes past the toilets.
With German casual dining chain L’Osteria, having recently bought a large stake in Pizza Pilgrims to drive international expansion, I expect before too long they’ll have achieved Pizza Hut ubiquity.
Grand Central, Stephenson Place, Birmingham B2 4BQ
6th November 2025
