Golden pizza awards for Liverpool pair

TOLD you so.

Confidential feels all fuzzy and warm when its critics' views are borne out by the opinions of others, especially when it comes to restaurants and national judges of.

This is mainly because we can't stand the thought of sending you to duff places and you beating us up. There are suddenly other people you can to do it to.

And so it came to pass this week that one of Liverpool Confidential's favourite haunts, the Little Pizza Kitchen, over in Waterloo, scooped gold in the Independent Pizza Restaurant category at the National Pizza and Pasta Association's awards.

Owner Alex Lawless had vanished and was doubtless still celebrating when Confidential called in on Monday night to congratulate him.

But the certificate was already up on the wall, and busy chef Lee Stevens was up for a picture. After all it was his cooking that had impressed the incognito judges when they made the trip up from London to the tiny restaurant in St John's Road.

”It's not just pizza,” the Little Pizza Kitchen would probably want us to say, and last time we were there, the warming risottos and pastas were flying

out, along with some pretty good meat and fish dishes.

Happily, there was even more to come for Liverpool at the London awards ceremony. Il Forno in Duke Street scored a gold too, in the Italian Restaurant section - they must be starting to get used to this - and no city did better, other than Glasgow, an Italian food hotspot from where the Il Forno family still have roots.

Nationally, ASK was voted the Best Pizza Chain in the PAPA awards. All very good but how can you tell? The big ask here is what's the real difference between it, Zizzi and Pizza Express - all are owned by the same homogenous parent. Frankie and Benny's took the Italian Food Restaurant Chain Award – someone's got to - while the Best Pizza Delivery chain was judged to be Papa John's.

Meanwhile, keeping it suburban again, L22 and nearby Crosby appear, finally, to be showing the first green shoots of health on the good restaurant front.

So let's hear it for the Little Pizza Kitchen - even show them that you love them by dropping by after day tripping on the nearby beach. All that Iron Man malarkey is hungry work.

(And if you do find something to take issue with, please do write to those PAPA peeps, just for a change!)