Il Forno, Italian restaurant, Duke Street, Liverpool _320
If you think this sounds rich, then you would be right, especially when topped with mozzarella and chunks of artichokes, but it’s delicious as an occasional treat and you don’t have to eat the whole thing.
Miss Piggy, who seems an appropriate mentor for eating in a restaurant with an option of 11 types of pasta, eight meat dishes, six choices of fish and 26 different pizzas, once said: “After all the trouble you go to, you get about as much actual food out of eating an artichoke as you would from licking 30 or 40 postage stamps.”
But after sampling the Pizza Carciofi, I would recommend her to save the stamps for sending Valentine’s to Kermit.
The dessert menu was just as well packed as the evening one, with a choice of four dishes, a cheese plate, 11 different ice creams and a selection of home- made Italian cakes. In the interests of our expanding waistlines, we agreed to share a Coppa Tiramisu (£5.25), a glass filled with tiramisu-flavoured ice cream, whipped cream and a sprinkling of chocolate shavings.
It was richly flavoured without that cloying aftertaste you sometimes get from coffee ice cream and the zabaglione liqueur we discovered when delving deeper into the dish transformed it into a pudding definitely made for grown-ups.
The writer George Miller once said: “The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later you're hungry again.“
I would say it took us a week.
Il Forno, 132 Duke Street, East Village, Liverpool
Tel: 0151 709 4002
Menu: Italian
Decor: Modern and a bit novelty
Child friendly: Yes
Service: Friendly
Value: Good
The bill: £66.94, including a bottle of Pinot Grigio at £14.50.
Disabled access: Yes
