Woman served pizza with tomato sauce and raw onion as store runs out of cheese

MARY Nesbitt-Larking ordered a $16 margherita pizza with vegan cheese. This is the “embarrassment on a plate” she was served instead.

A UK woman who recently paid $16 for a vegan pizza was shocked when a “shameful” meal turned up at her table.

Mary Nesbitt-Larking had ordered a vegan margherita pizza from popular UK chain Pizza Express in Hatfield, England when she was told the store had run out of vegan cheese.

The starving 26-year-old decided to order the meal anyway, but asked for pine nuts to be added to the dish.

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After an hour-long wait, her pizza was finally served — but it consisted of nothing but a base, tomato sauce and some raw red onion.

And to add insult to injury, the woman was charged an additional $3 for the pine nuts which were nowhere to be seen.

Ms Nesbitt-Larking recently posted a photo of the sorry-looking meal on Facebook, describing it as a “monstrosity”.

She told Femail the pizza tasted as bad as it looked.

“Vegan food options are amazing, and Pizza Express are incredible usually, it was just that one time they failed so epically,” she said.

“It was so awkward because I’d waited over an hour and at that point I would have eaten anything as long as it was vegan.

“It tasted like undercooked flatbread with a whole tin of tomatoes over it that were really sour, and had raw, red onions on top.”

After posting the picture online and making a complaint, Ms Nesbitt-Larking contacted Pizza Express.

She ended up receiving an apology from the company along with a $90 voucher to be used in-store.

But not before the chain had been savaged online for its woeful vegan offering.

In response to Ms Nesbitt-Larking’s original post, Iona Dorsett wrote: “The poor waiter/ess that had to serve that embarrassment on a plate!” while Linda Nimmick posted: “How can they have the cheek to serve you this mess of a pizza I would of refuse to have it … that is shameful, disgusting” and Jason Finnegan added: “I’ve never seen anything like it. Surely it was a bad joke.”

Mary Nesbitt-Larking has been a vegan for five years. Picture: Facebook @Mary Nesbitt-Larking

While some Facebook users could see the funny side, others argued the young woman should never have been charged for the meal in the first place — although Ms Nesbitt-Larking claimed Pizza Express usually offered “amazing” vegan options.

Veganism is a growing trend worldwide and is especially popular in the United Kingdom, with the BBC reporting the number of vegans had jumped from 150,000 in 2006 to 542,000 in 2016.

The trend is growing in Australia as well, with the number of Aussies eating a mainly vegetarian diet rising by over 23 per cent in the last four years, according to Roy Morgan research.

Animals Australia has also claimed veganism was the fastest growing food movement in the world.

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