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If you're looking to relax over a fine meal in a restaurant where the ambience is laidback and casual, and yet the food is prepared with utmost care, then you might want to take a look at an Azzurro. For several years, they have been providing Italian inspired cuisine to their patrons and their popularity continues to be undiminished. Hunger demands can be met with their bar menu with its tortilla chips and pizza.

The main menu is excellent, with typical starters such as tiger prawns with garlic, butter and parsley followed by herb crusted roasted lamb rump, mashed potato, French beans and rosemary jus. Sample the profiteroles filled with cream and covered with chocolate sauce for a light and delectable dessert and make sure you choose something from their selection of draught beers or maybe a glass of wine from the eclectic list that spans both the Old and the New World.

Pizza Express remains a hugely popular bedrock of casual eating. Its popularity is testimony to the fact that across the country, they have restaurants where you will always be guaranteed a good nosh, with children's tastes being well catered for.

Pizza Express has gone even more Roman, and following the success of that particular example of listening to their public have introduced Romana pizzas, including the scorching Etna and the hearty Siciliana.

These pizzas are now thinner, bigger and crispier, and if that sounds like a marketing line, it is. However, unlike many such lines, this one is true, and their quality is always consistent, though cleverly they have still managed to retain a homemade feel to their pizzas.

As an alternative to pizza, try their pollo pesto - cavatappi pasta with torn chicken breast, mushrooms, red onions and mozzarella in a creamy gruyere, parmesan and pesto sauce and finished with grana padano - or the niçoise salad with mixed leaves, yellowfin tuna, free range egg, green beans, potatoes and tomatoes with olives, anchovies, capers and house dressing.

Many of the big chains have come a long way, and Pizza Express is certainly amongst them. One of the first to be quoted on the Stock Exchange - in 1993 - Pizza Express is not a franchise operation and retains tight control through its own staff.

Their wine list - though short - contains some surprisingly good offerings, especially their intense Australian Chardonnay, and a big, full-bodied Merlot from Cusumano, Sicilia.