With its thin-crust, filling pizzas and impressive pricing, this casual pizza bar is a great option for a pre-night out meal, says Alex Bellotti.

There’s no shortage of pizza restaurants in London: whether it’s the traditional Napoli-sourced offerings of L’Antica Pizzeria in Hampstead or the sourdough delights of Brixton’s Franco Manca, there’s a venue for practically every variation of the old Italian staple.

Few, however, produce it quite as efficiently as Pizza Union. Having established themselves first in Spitalfields, the pizza bar now has a second branch in King’s Cross. Favouring a Nando’s-style ordering service at the counter, you choose your toppings and wait for little more than 10 minutes before collecting your fire-baked, thin-based creation to eat back at your table.

Decked out with exposed brickwork, wooden benches and a cantina-like design, the most impressive aspect of Pizza Union is the price. A basic 12-inch Margherita will set you back as little as £3.95, otherwise classics such as Pepperoni, Fiorentina or Carne all hover between the £5.50-£6.50 mark. At the very least, it is strikingly good value.

I ordered a Stagioni (Cotto ham, pepperoni, mushrooms, artichoke and black olives), while my guest opted for the Vesuvio (pepperoni, green chillies and cracked chillies). Intriguingly, the former’s toppings weren’t thrown across the entire pizza, but rather separated individually between slices. It looked a bit strange, but highlighted the quality of the ingredients: the mushrooms particularly were far from the usual buttoned variety, looking more Shiitake in style and proving as meaty as the wafer-light, salty Cotto ham. The base is as crispy as promised – thin, just the right side of charred and substantial enough to feel you’re getting your fill.

The spice of the Vesuvio crept up on my guest – no doubt supplemented by the tub of potent chilli sauce that came as a side (again, very similar to the Nando’s variety).

Dessert options included ready-to-eat tubs of gelato, but we decided to try the freshly-made dough rings. Crafted from practically the same dough as the pizzas, they temptingly oozed with caramel, chocolate and peanuts, but proved a tad too indulgent for us to do justice to them.

It’s not the most ambitious pizza in London, but as price/quality ratios go, you’d be hard-pressed to find many better options than Pizza Union. For a quick pre-night out meal, it’d certainly hit the spot and give your wallet some light relief too.