Review: The Godfather, Darwen

Phone number: 01254 702 233.

The Bolton News review by Andrew Greaves from January 6, 2011.

Darwen has a plethora of decent restaurants.

A smattering of well-established curry houses, a decent tapas place and The Godfather Pizza house, which, despite sounding all a bit too cliched for its own good is, in fact, a very decent Italian restaurant.

Squeezed between its sister takeaway place and another shop, you’d be forgiven for missing it at first glance.

But it really is there and you should try it.

It may only be tiny, but the family-run Godfather is not in any way cliched or even licensed, which means it is quite easy to enjoy a nice three-course meal, as we did, for under £30.

Even if you were to skip the soft drinks Godfather does serve and opt to fetch your own Special Brew from the nearby Booze Busters, it will only add a handful of 50 pences to your bill.

Being the kind of cosmopolitan folk we are, the girl and I took a liberal approach to ordering and selected a starter each which the other would help demolish.

I ordered the Etna garlic bread — essentially the old classic garlic pizza but with bullet chillies, sundried tomatoes and red onion — while the girl opted for garlic mushrooms.

Etna was, as one would expect a pizza named after a volcano to be, rather hot, but not in a bad way.

The garlic mushrooms were cooked superbly and after just the starters we were more than delighted we had chosen Godfather over any of the other choices.

For the mains, we both went straight to the pizza menu — I had a kind of spicy hot concoction with chicken and more chillies while her indoors opted for the more conservative pepperoni.

The pair were an absolute delight, with crisp crusts and soft bases, and packed with wonderfully tasty toppings.

The Godfather markets itself as a traditional Italian pizza house, and, unlike some multi-national chains that take the same tact, it actually lives up to its billing.

Forced by the powers-that-be to indulge in three courses for these reviews, we played it safe and went for a bowl of ice-cream.

Having overdone ourselves on picking exciting starters and mains, we opted for plain old vanilla.

All together the bill, with a couple of diet cokes thrown in, weighed in at under £30, which is good value in any language.

Lancashire Telegraph review by Kimberley Hall from August 7, 2010.

An expanded takeaway seems an unlikely contender for a quality eating establishment.

On arrival, though, we were very pleasantly surprised.

The restaurant which has been opened next door is classy, simple and comfortable, but unlicensed.

Luckily we knew about this and poured our own drinks into the wine glasses which were provided for a small cost.

The menu isn’t huge but the five of us opted for a number of dishes from it, including starters of Etna garlic bread, garlic mushrooms and vegetable antipasto.

The garlic bread, as expected from the name, was spicy and didn't last long on our table The garlic mushrooms and antipasto also got the thumbs-up.

For mains we chose a salmon salad, pepperoni pizza, seafood pasta, Caesar salad and spaghetti gamberoni (with king prawns).

There were no complaints about the quality or taste of our dishes, with only scraps left on our plates.

The Caesar salad, while not being the classic all-green affair, was served on a huge plate, as with the salmon salad.

The gamberoni in a tomato and cream sauce was very spicy, almost too much for a chilli fiend like myself, but once through the heat, it was a very nice dish.

Most opted for ice cream for dessert as the hotly-tipped tiramisu we were told about had sold out.

For under £20 each with coffees, the evening didn’t break the bank.

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