Richmond was the first stage of a journey. We’re excited about how the Living Lab is performing and have been taking the elements that work the best to see if we can make them work in other PizzaExpress restaurants across our diverse estate.

You might have noticed some of these big changes at our restaurants in Charlotte Street (London), Balham, Fulham and Newbury.

• We’ve continued working with our acoustics expert on cutting the noise in our restaurants so you can have a better conversation.
• We’ve been training more of our pizzaiolos in the art of dough tossing.
• DJ Nick Luscombe has got hold of our music list and given it a more modern jazz session twist.
• More of our waiters and waitresses have had gentle conversation lessons.
• We’ve held a series of memorable events in our new restaurants, including popular Play Dough Hour where kids can have messy fun with our famous dough.

Come in and let us know what you think!

Check out the Living Lab on the BBC’s See Hear programme, looking at how we’ve worked on the acoustics – reducing the number of decibels in the restaurant by half!

This will be up on the iPlayer until December 22nd…

When our founder Peter Boizot opened his first restaurant in 1965, he worked with Enzo Apicella to establish PizzaExpress’s reputation for inventive and colourful design. 45 years later, we’ve been working with designer and architect Ab Rogers to continue this tradition at the new PizzaExpress Richmond.

We love Ab’s design because it allows diners to have an intimate meal without feeling cut off from our bustling, vibrant restaurant. PizzaExpress Richmond is a playful experiment that will evolve as our customers experience it.

Ab’s design is a celebration of PizzaExpress’s two obsessions: food and conversation. Our love of pizza is matched only by our love of a chat, so let us know what you think of Ab’s design – whether on this blog or in person at PizzaExpress Richmond…

We want to welcome all sorts to the Living Lab – mums, dads, kids, long-lost siblings… To make sure we look after everyone as best as we can we went to an army of experts for advice – over a thousand members of the online community Mumsnet.

We asked them what they wanted to see in a family-friendly restaurant, they all wanted a decent amount of space to eat and play in (and to park the buggies in), easy ordering and decent, healthy food for the children.

We’re not promising we can meet every one of these demands, but Carrie Longton, Mumsnet co-founder, explains how this feedback has shaped the look and feel of the new restaurant.

If you’ve visited PizzaExpress Richmond already, you might be curious about the large domes hanging over some of the seating areas. They’re the brainchild of acoustics expert Sergio Luzzi and designer Dominic Robson, who we asked to create intimate spaces for conversation. The domes create an acoustic bubble so that customers can hear each other over the hubbub of the Living Lab – because we think pizzas go perfectly with a little tête-à-tête.

DJ and broadcaster Nick Luscombe is bringing the spirit of Soho’s legendary PizzaExpress Jazz Club to the Living Lab.

Nick has already organised the fantastic event in Dean Street last month and is now working on a series of live events to follow it up. Here he discusses the inspiration behind PizzaExpress’ new musical direction.

To get a flavour of the kind of music he’s talking about check out the following artists’ pages who have already played as part of the new generation music programme: My Tiger My Timing; Andreya Triana; The Simonsound and Stac…

Now that the Living Lab is up and running we thought we’d share a quick video showing the transformation that happened down in Richmond.

Here’s what some of the party-goers at this week’s launch had to say about it. And no, we didn’t pay them (though we did feed them pizzettine)…

Last night’s grand opening of our Living Lab drew hundreds of friends, including founders Peter Boizot and Enzo Apicella, Antonio Carluccio, Lord and Lady Rogers, singer Andreya Triana, a delegation from the Eastenders cast and many more curious to see the new approach.

We’d like to say a big ‘thank you’ to all those who helped to make it such a great night! You can find some more photos on our Flickr…

As we prepare to open the doors to the world tomorrow we thought it time to give you a peek of what’s inside. Here is one of our pizzaiolos warming up.

We’ll show you more of the place in action soon!