Brrrinng! goes the doorbell. Exactly 35 minutes ago, I ordered a Pizza Quattro Stagione, a Pizza Margharita, two Insalata Caprese and two portions of tiramisu.

Some evenings, when we aren’t in the mood to go out to a restaurant or are just too lazy to cook, I phone the pizza service ‘around the corner’. I say around the corner because almost all home delivery services advertise how close they are to your home and how fast their delivery service is.

‘Hello! Here is your order, sir,’ says the young man in motorcycle leathers. ‘That’s 31 euros, please,’ he adds. ‘One pizza is free, because it’s your tenth.’ I suddenly remember that I have a regular customer card. ‘Keep the change,’ I say as I give him the money with one hand and try to balance the boxes and plastic dishes in the other.

The two cardboard boxes feel lukewarm, and when we open them, my girlfriend and I find that the contents are not necessarily hot just because it says ‘Hot Pizza’ on the box. But we are too hungry to bother with reheating them in the oven. We always split the pizzas in half and swap. Pizza is always difficult to cut, especially a take-away. The once crispy base of our two pizzas now has the consistency of a Swiss cheese fondue and refuses obstinately to be cut.

Once we have finished our gourmet Italian at-home meal, we look at each other and exchange views, just as we would if we had eaten at a restaurant. In this case, we are agreed: ‘The pizza wasn’t exactly a hit,’ says my girlfriend. ‘But the salad was ok, and the tiramisu was excellent,’ I add. We both realize simultaneously that that’s what we say every time we order a take-away pizza. I pour bitters into two liqueur glasses and hope that they will make the meal more digestible.

We learnt three things from this, namely:

1. that pizza is probably the least suitable meal for a take-away;

2. that we would be happier if every tenth pizza was not free, but as good as it tastes in the restaurant; and

3. that in future, we will go back to ordering sushi instead.

Amazingly good!

One company in Zurich has specialized in take-away meals and delivers meals from your favourite restaurant to your home.

A pizza delivery service brings you your pizza in special heated containers. Customers pay a small deposit for such a container. The next time they order a pizza, the messenger takes the old container back with him. This is the best system I have come across so far.