PizzaExpress

You'll find this particular PizzaExpress tucked into a beautiful Victorian building that makes the whole chain experience feel less corporate and more special. The basement dining room has proper character - exposed brick, warm lighting, and enough atmosphere to make you forget you're eating somewhere with 400+ locations. The pizzas are exactly what you'd expect from PizzaExpress, which is to say reliably good rather than groundbreaking. But sometimes that's precisely what you want - a Sloppy Giuseppe that tastes the same whether you're in Manchester or Milton Keynes. The dough balls remain criminally addictive, and the garlic butter hasn't changed since 1995 (thank god). They do decent jazz nights in the basement too, which transforms the space into something genuinely atmospheric rather than just another high street pizza spot.