Located on Commercial Drive, Famoso is a pizza chain that serves Neapolitan pizzas. It was my first time here, but I loved the pizza! The pizzas are baked in an authentic bell oven for 900 F for only 90 seconds and has a super thin crust. I tried the classic Margherita pizza - basically just tomato sauce and cheese, and a salad. Delicious!

Margherita Pizza - Campania tomato sauce, fior-di-latte, fresh basil, extra virgin olive oil.

Famoso Salad - romaine lettuce, prosciutto crisps, carrots, cherry tomatoes, soppressata, fire-roasted chicken, feta and dijon-balsamic vinaigrette.

So many gelato flavours to choose from!

There was also a gelato and sorbetto bar inside the restaurant, which was a surprise. You can go up and try the different flavours before making your choice. It was really difficult to choose!

Salted Caramel Dark Chocolate gelato and Limone Sorbetto.

Limone Sorbetto and Blood Orange Creamsicle Gelato.

The Neopolitan pizza was reasonably priced and are a change from the fast-food pizza you get at places like Pizza Hut. If you're looking for something different, give Famoso a try!

Pizza Express - Authentic Italian Pizza in London

On our second full day, we went for a quick lunch at Pizza Express after training. We were in a rush to head to Hyde Park to see the end of the Torch Relay. Though a chain restaurant, the pizzas had an authentic Italian feel to it. Even the menus choices were listed in Italian names. We started off with a few appetizers, including dough balls (no picture, sorry!) and garlic bread. Yum, carbs! I opted for a thin crust chicken pizza, Il Padrino. All the pizza's came with a pizza cutter, which was very cool. My pizza was pretty tasty!

Garlic bread.

Il Padrino - chicken, roasted tomatoes, chargrilled vegetables, tomato & pesto base.

Fire & Stone Pizza Restaurants in London

Fire & Stone is a pizza restaurant in the UK and we were taken there for dinner on our 5th night in London. There are only five locations, so it's not technically a chain restaurant. They have old fashioned wood-fired pizza ovens, which gives the pizzas an authentic taste. We were given a set menu with appetizers, a variety of pizzas, pastas or salads to choose from, as well dessert. There were all sorts of interesting pizza toppings and combinations - cucumber yoghurt, mango chutney, tandoori chicken, and rosemary roast potatoes to name a few. I wasn't feeling particularly hungry so I opted to go for the spinach salad.

Charcuterie board - Parma ham, Napoli salami, garlic & fennel salami, smoked ham, hummus, olives and bread sticks.

Vegetarian antipasti platter - rice stuffed vine leaves, Kalamata olives, artichokes, tomatoes, hummus, braised butter beans and bread sticks.

Spinach, bacon, avocado and artichoke salad.

Chocolate brownie with Madagascan vanilla ice cream.

The appetizer platters were very nice to share. I've never tried stuffed vine leaves before, so that was interesting. It has a sour or pickled taste to it. The spinach salad was great, tossed in a creamy grain mustard vinaigrette. The serving size was small, but just right for me! There actually wasn't a lot of spinach in it. Of course, you can (almost) never go wrong with a chocolate brownie. It was sweet and delicious, especially paired with vanilla ice cream. Yum!