Pizza Pilgrims (Exmouth Market)

The dough is double fermented and goes into the oven at 500C, and the nduja on it is Nduja di Spilinga DOP, which this company was using on pizza in London before most kitchens here had heard of the stuff (Pizza Pilgrims, Hot Dinners).

Why go

This branch opened on 16 November 2015 with forty seats, a takeaway counter and a room the company promised would be "filled with retro arcade machines" (Hot Dinners). Thom and James Elliot began the business with a pilgrimage around Italy in 2011 and a converted three-wheeler, and the sourcing still reads like people who went looking: San Marzano DOP tomatoes, Fior di Latte and Mozzarella di Bufala DOP, Piennolo del Vesuvio tomatoes, Cetaran anchovies from Amalfi. Shaun Searley, chef-patron of The Quality Chop House, gives the company his best-pizza answer in a 2025 industry questionnaire (TOPJAW). Read that as a verdict on the brand, since he names no branch. The group now runs around thirty sites across Britain, which is the honest frame for everything above: this is a format being executed well, not a kitchen taking risks.

Order this / avoid

• Order: the Nduja, then the plain Margherita to judge the dough on its own, then the Marinara Extra if you want to taste the two tomatoes without cheese in the way. The vegan margherita comes with vegan burrata and is worth ordering on purpose.
• Avoid: treating a review of Dean Street or West India Quay as a review of this room, and turning up late on a Sunday, when the kitchen closes an hour early.

What locals & experts say

• Shaun Searley, chef-patron of The Quality Chop House in Farringdon, asked for his best pizza in London: "Best pizza: Pizza Pilgrims. With those, class. No messing." He names the company rather than a site. ref
• Hot Dinners, announcing this branch in October 2015: they are "known for their - very good indeed - Neapolitan pizza coming in Margherita, Marinara, Carbonara and spicy Nduja flavours (they were one of the earliest to use nduja in pizzas)." ref
• Elliot Cunningham, co-founder of Eld Pizza, on the group, naming other branches: "Thom and James offer a fun take on Neapolitan Style Pizza - head to dean street branch for soho basement feel and table football, or west India quay for table tennis!" That is a pick for two different addresses, from someone who discloses he used to work for the company, and it is not evidence about Exmouth Market. ref
• No critic has reviewed this branch. Searches on 30 July 2026 found listings, aggregators and brand-level coverage. What holds this entry up is one industry pick at brand level, a dated trade announcement about this address, and the kitchen's own published spec.

Good to know

• Which site: 15 Exmouth Market EC1R 4QD, in Clerkenwell, one of about thirty Pizza Pilgrims premises nationally. Dean Street, West India Quay, Kingly Street, Garrick Street and the rest are separate rooms with separate records.
• Timing: Monday to Saturday 11:30 to 22:30, Sunday 11:30 to 21:30.
• Booking: walk-in, with click and collect if you would rather take it away.
• Size: forty seats when it opened, which is why a big group at 7pm on a Friday is optimistic.
• Dietary: a Vegan Margherita with vegan burrata and a Pizz& Love with plant-based mozzarella are on the branch menu. No gluten-free base is listed and no cross-contamination statement is published.
• Hygiene: FSA rating 5 for this premises, inspected 27 May 2025. Ratings at the group's other sites belong to those addresses. ref

Jeff's take (his words)

Jeff has no note on this row. His raw saved-places export lists it as "Pizza Pilgrims Exmouth Market" with an empty Note, which is useful in one respect: he saved the branch, not the brand.

Verdict (Chef Jeff ladder)

could-visit — Forty seats on Exmouth Market since November 2015, and the pizza is better than a thirty-site group has any obligation to make. The dough is double fermented and goes into the oven at 500C, the tomatoes are San Marzano and Piennolo del Vesuvio DOP, and the nduja is Nduja di Spilinga, which this company was putting on pizza in London before most kitchens had heard of it. Shaun Searley, who runs The Quality Chop House ten minutes away, gives the company his best-pizza answer: 'With those, class. No messing.' He names the brand and not this door, which matters, and so does the fact that nobody with a byline has reviewed this branch. What you get here is a reliable, genuinely well-made Neapolitan pizza on a good street at chain prices, walk-in, with a vegan version that is a real order rather than a concession. Go when you are on Exmouth Market and want lunch. When pizza is the reason for the evening, London has rooms with more to say.