Panda Pizza

Panda Pizza is one of the older independent pizzerias in central Ilkeston, trading from a small frontage along the upper end of Bath Street. Locals tend to put it in the same conversation as the long-running town-centre pizza places, and reviewers on Yelp and Restaurant Guru regularly reach for the same phrase — stone-baked and proper.

The menu is shorter and more focused than the all-purpose pizza-and-kebab shops a few doors down. Pizzas are the main job: traditional toppings on stone-baked bases in three sizes, with the meat feast, four cheese and chicken-and-jalapeno turning up most often in reviews. Alongside the pizzas there is a small pasta list — bolognese, lasagne, carbonara — plus salads, jacket potatoes and a handful of garlic-bread starters. There is no kebab line, no donner and no fried chicken: in central Ilkeston that itself counts as a clear positioning choice.

The shop opens evenings only, with a slightly later finish on Fridays and Saturdays for the weekend trade. Phone orders for collection are the standard route; a fair share also goes out for delivery into Cotmanhay, Kirk Hallam and the residential streets within easy reach. Repeat customers cite the bases — properly cooked, not soggy, still good cold the next day — as the reason they keep going back.