Gino D’Acampo 2 Go Coronavirus collection and delivery service, Liverpool

We’re now about to the enter the second week of June, which means the UK have been on COVID lockdown for the best part of three months. That’s nearly twelve whole weeks without our beloved bars and restaurants and let me tell you, I’m about ready to have somebody else do the cooking.

I’ve been whipping up a storm in the homemade meals department over the past few weeks (and having a ball) but honestly, the prospect of not having to sweat half my bodyweight in a steamed up kitchen before eating so much as a morsel has become a euphoric concept right about now.

When the lovely lot from the Gino D’Acampo restaurant in Liverpool got in touch to ask if I wanted to check out their new GinoDAcampo2Go collection and delivery service, I damn near bit their hands off. Had it not been for the ongoing Coronavirus crisis we all seem to have found ourselves embroiled in, I might have done just that.

Before 2020 reared its ugly head, my other half and I had enjoyed a pretty memorable meal at Gino’s in Liverpool around Christmas time so we already had our eye on the smoked provola cheese garlic bread (£6.50) and a bottle of Valpolicella Ripasso before we had even clicked on the GinoDAcampo2Go menu. Both added to the basket in record time, of course.

For mains we decided on ‘Mamma’s Chicken Risotto’ (£12.50) with tomato, white wine and parsley and lasagne with slow-cooked beef ragu and basil pesto (£13). On the side were some crunchy green beans with garlic and balsamic dressing (£4), as well as a totally surplus but completely delicious portion of roasted new potatoes with pepper, garlic and rosemary (£4.25). Oh, and a big ol’ slab of tiramisu (£6.50) for afters – ‘the ultimate Italian dessert’.

Everything we had was every bit as fresh and tasty as it would have been if we had eaten in the restaurant. Collection was clean, contactless and prompt to the very second, following some very handy text updates after placing our order online (which you can do up to 48 hours in advance). Delivery is also available if you live within five miles but being on the Wirral, we were just a little out of the catchment area but the Gino2Go experience was worth every second spent in the car listening to my girlfriend screech along to Diana Ross.

Keep scrolling for photographic evidence of the feast we devoured and then once your tastebuds are feeling suitably envious and your stomach starts rumbling, head on over to www.ginodacampo2go.com to get your next social distance-style date night sorted…