One of the most expensive slices of pizza I have ever had was, it shouldn’t be surprising, in New York, on 8th Avenue near the theater district. The heavy tourist trade should have warned me, but when you’re hungry you’re hungry and a slice of pizza sounded just right. I bristled at the $4 charge for a simple sausage and mushroom, but I swallowed hard, literally and figuratively.

I say it was one of the most expensive. The most expensive slice I’ve ever purchased was recently in Orlando, on Orange Avenue, near what would be the theater district if we had a theater district. This was at Gino’s; I don’t know which Roman numeral followed the name — III, maybe IV. I had already walked out of another Gino’s — IV, maybe III — because the pies didn’t look very good. But when I got around to the one on Orange Avenue, I was hungry enough that I didn’t care what they looked like. I ordered a slice of the meat pizza and nearly plotzed when the young woman told me it would be $5. Five bucks for a slice of pizza! That means an eight-slice pie would fetch $40. That’s quite a hefty markup. (And never mind that later, when I found a recent menu from Gino’s that had been stuffed into the handle on my front door, I read that a specialty slice of ‘za should have cost only — only? — $4.) (And never mind that it was a pretty good slice of pizza; it’s the point.)

All this is to mention that I came across a place in London recently with a really terrific idea: selling a slice of pizza by the kilo. The pies are rectangular instead of round, although I’m not sure one can technically have a rectangular pie. The slices are four-sided, too, and you simply indicate to the attendant how large a slice, or chunk, as it were, that you’d like. He chops it off, throws it on the scale and then into the oven to heat it up. Have as little or as much as you like. Makes perfect sense.

I wish I could tell you that it was a delicious pizza to go with the brilliant idea, but it was largely forgettable, just like the name.