Review: MOD Pizza Restaurant, Leeds

MOD (it refers to MOD culture) is a new chain of pizza restaurants that has opened all over America in the last few years.

The first restaurant to open in the UK is right here in Yorkshire on Kirkstall Road in Leeds. There will be more restaurants opening soon across the UK in Brighton, Nottingham and a flagship restaurant in Leicester Square in London.

The new Leeds restaurant on our visit was busy with a buzzing but relaxed atmosphere. The clientele seemed to be a mix of young families and under 30's, although there were quite a few older diners. It was a restaurant where you could come casually dressed.

All pizzas are made to order, hence the restaurant name. You are greeted with a friendly hello from the staff, a lot of whom stand behind the long counter where you order your pizza that is customised to your liking.

All the ingredients are laid out in trays in front of you (the staff then put the ingredients on a pizza base) and you can basically make up your own pizza, which is then cooked for you whilst you take a seat; you just wait then for your name to be called out and you collect your freshly cooked pizza.

The regular 11inch base pizza costs £7.47 and you can have as many toppings as you want on your pizza for this price. A mini 4inch pizza costs £4.47 whilst a mega pizza which is 2 double 11inch pizzas together costs £10.47.

There are 9 classic pizzas to choose from if you do not want to make up your own version. There is also a salad bar. Again the servers make up your customised salad in a bowl for you as you choose your ingredients.

You can have wine by the glass if you choose, but there are also milk shakes or cold drinks from a dispenser serving Strawberry Lemonade, Blackberry Lemonade, Vintage Lemonade and Iced tea, all of which you can have as much as you can drink. You could also have a bottle of beer.

There are the usual garlic bread strips along with cinnamon strips that come with a dip of chocolate sauce.

It is a restaurant that children will find novel, where they can make up their own pizza and choose their own drinks from the large selection.

The pizzas were very tasty and filling, the Mad Dog pizza consisting of mozzarella, pepperoni, mild sausage and ground beef was perfectly cooked. The pizza did taste different from that of their UK competitors.

All tables come with 4 stacked plates for your pizza along with a small dispenser of napkins. There are seating booths and a variety of other seating arrangements.

One area which I thought was sadly missing was a selection of desserts. Although they have the cinnamon strips it would not take too much effort to have at least one dessert such as ice cream. It would be a good idea to have an ice cream dispenser where you help yourself. This would have been an even better end to the meal.

The concept of not having desserts might work in an American environment but it would work better if they catered for the UK sweet tooth.

It is a brave move to try to launch a new pizza restaurant chain into an already crowded pizza restaurant market in the UK but MOD have a concept that sets them apart from the competition and a visit is definitely a new experience that you will want to try more than once. It is certainly different and it deserves to be a success in Leeds and the rest of the UK.

MOD Pizza, Unit 11a Cardigan Fields Leisure Park, Kirkstall Road, Leeds LS4 2DG
Telephone 0113 263 4932
www.modpizza.co.uk