The club sits below the restaurant, and a table for the set is a separate booking from a table upstairs. Headline nights sell out, so reserve the room ahead.
PizzaExpress Jazz Club sits in the basement below the Dean Street restaurant in Soho, and it has booked live jazz almost every night since 1976. The room reads as a supper club more than a concert hall, with tables drawn close to a low stage and the kitchen running through the set. Wikipedia logs the same long line of names that the club still trades on, from Norah Jones and Gregory Porter to a young Jamie Cullum who built early sets here.
Anyone who likes a standard played near to the table will settle in fast, because the bill leans toward singers, trios and the kind of mainstream jazz that carries a dinner. The format charges a poor fit for a listener who wants a silent, seated concert, since plates arrive and conversation carries between numbers. Visit London files it among the city's landmark jazz rooms, and the booking is the reason to come.
One low basement room runs long under the street, with banquettes and small tables angled toward a corner stage. The lighting stays warm and the sightlines hold, so the front tables sit almost on top of the players while the back trades a clear view for elbow room. The kitchen works the floor through the night, which keeps the room closer to a Soho dining room than a jazz bar.
The club has carried the same supper room format for almost five decades, and the wall of photographs traces the players who passed through on the way up. Wikipedia records the early sets that built reputations here, from Norah Jones to Jamie Cullum, which is why a Soho jazz pilgrimage so often starts at this address. The room treats the standard with respect, and the booking still leans toward singers and small groups who can hold a table close.
A full bar runs alongside the Italian list, so an Aperol Spritz at around 9 pounds or a glass of house red near 7 pounds will see most of a set through. The kitchen sends the pizzas the chain is known for, which sit between 12 and 16 pounds and anchor the table for the evening. A music charge is added per guest on top of food and drink, listed with each show on the PizzaExpress Live site, so the cost of the night lands on the booking rather than the round. Reviewers on Yelp, across the venue's listing, return often to the close stage and the warmth of the room.
The early sets pull couples and small groups who treat the night as dinner with a band attached. Tourists and Soho regulars fill the weekend slots, and the room turns more attentive once a headline name takes the stage. The mood stays civil rather than rowdy, since the tables and the table service set the tempo.
A table set for the food and the set together, in a room that has run that way since 1976.
