Having whiled away the day post-afternoon tea at Cahoots with yet more drinking, Lauren, Colleen, her fiancé Ciaran, and I eventually thought it best that we get some food to soak up the copious amounts of booze sloshing around our bellies.

Gazing round the many appetising options housed in Kingly Court, we voted Pizza Pilgrims as most up to the task at hand.

Ever since Zomato & Pizza Pilgrims invited me to be a #PizzaGod for the evening and sample some, shall we say, ‘off-menu’ pizzas, I’ve wanted to return and get my hands on the real deal as, although some of the offerings weren’t entirely to my taste, one thing was for sure, I was in love with their dough.

So it was with great anticipation that I was finally going to sample some of their more classic, even famous, pizza toppings.

After studying the menu for a good 5 minutes and being completely torn between a number of options, I decided what I was having.

We ordered ourselves a 1000ml white wine ‘on tap’ (£22.00) to fuel our alcoholism further (bear in mind I still had Zoe’s birthday party to come…).

Before sharing a starter of deep fried artichoke hearts with rosemary salt (£4.00).

These were pretty damn disappointing if I’m honest, and no less so for being served without a dip (yes, I know I’m a sauce fiend, but an aioli of sorts seems like this dish’s necessary other half to me).

Side rant: It really annoys me when restaurants don’t have Heinz (your homemade version will never be as good, accept it) ketchup or mayo on hand, because even though they may be too ‘proud’ to buy shop-bought sauces, some people just enjoy their food more with them, and shouldn’t it be all about pleasing the customer at the end of the day? Even if they kept them in a dust-covered box in the attic, just in case someone asked (i.e. me), wouldn’t it make putting a smile on your customer’s face and allowing them to enjoy your food more make it worth the ‘insult’? Views on this welcomed. Maybe my addiction has made me lose sense.

So, in case you hadn’t gathered, no sauce was provided.

Moving on to much better things, in the form of pizzas. Beautiful, amazing, scrumptious pizzas.

Between the four of us, the 3 pizzas I’d been eyeing up had been ordered.

Colleen had the portobello mushroom white pizza with fior di latte (cow’s milk mozzarella), parmesan, basil & truffle oil (£9.50).

The truffle packed a punch (in the best possible way) and the delicate flavours and combination of textures made for a dreamy end result.

Ciaran had the Margherita with Neapolitan black pepper salami (£9.00).

An excellent version of the classic.

Whilst Lauren & I went for the Margherita with Nduja (spicy Calabrian pork sausage) (£8.50). It’s safe to say that I was not disappointed with our choice. My only ask would have been for more Nduja, which was incredibly tasty and had a solid, fiery kick to it.

To quote Pizza Pilgrims, “the delicious Calabrian sausage is made from the tastiest/fattiest parts of the pig, mixed with a lot of chillies, smoked and cured, before melting down on the pizza into little pools of spicy joy”. If that didn’t make you salivate then I don’t know what will.

I couldn’t choose my favourite of the 3. They were all ridiculously good, with the star of each plate still being the sourdough for me.

I don’t know if it’s because all of the ingredients (and chefs!) are flown in from Naples, or if there is one seriously secret recipe at play here, but I could eat their dough all day, every day, and be a very happy human.

So now that I’ve given Pizza Pilgrims a fair test, where does it rank amongst my pizza loves?

Homeslice is still my number one (I just have too much love), but Pizza Pilgrims is a close second, with Franco Manca a couple of notches behind and Pizza Union dragging its feet further down the line.

However, if desserts were thrown into the mix, Pizza Pigrims’ Nutella & salted ricotta pizza ring (£5.50) (which we devoured in seconds way back when) would easily be the favourite.

8/10