It’s official – the best pizza in the country can be found right on our doorstep!
That’s because York’s Red Goat Kitchen today won the award for Britain’s Best Pizza.
More than 400 entries from across the country were sent in by pizza chefs to the competition, run by Arla Pro UK.
After months of judging, Red Goat Kitchen’s Mountaineer pizza was the entry that claimed the top spot.
A creation consisting of English buffalicious mozzarella, Ribblesdale goats cheese, cherry tomatoes, and finished with Yorkshire cultivated rocket, Lishman’s of Ilkley Yorkshire Bresaola, and chilli jam.
YorkMix spoke to Cam Wilson from Red Goat, who put forward the pizza, and who couldn’t quite believe the news.
“I’m shocked, I can’t lie. It wasn’t something I was expecting to win, not that I don’t believe in the product or the things that we do here, just that there were a lot of entries,” he said.
“I think there’s a lot of people that obviously make amazing pizza. I’m buzzing!”
Nikki May, owner of Red Goat, was just as overjoyed to hear the announcement this afternoon. “I’m so excited that they’ve won. I’m really proud of the staff they’ve done really, really well, and especially to Cam, but all the staff have done really well.”
As well as being the driving force behind the entry, Cam also created the Mountaineer, applying inspiration from his life in Yorkshire.
“We made it to pay homage to the landscape in Yorkshire that we love. The ingredients were all hand picked from places that we’ve climbed, places that we’ve enjoyed going over the years. It’s our way of paying respect to the landscape that we’ve enjoyed.”
Arla Pro UK is the dedicated foodservice business of the global dairy co-operative Arla Foods, and their pizza competition began in 2023.
Judges include champion pizza chef Marco Fuso and Italian food blogger Elisabette Basile.
This year, Rich from Flat Earth Pizzas was also on the panel, who achieved number one with his Kimchi pizza last year.
Two rounds of judging
Red Goat Kitchen faced two rounds of judging, a mystery pizza taster in August and a taste test from the panel two weeks ago.
“It was a very stressful day. I’ve never had so many people watch me so closely making food, and I’m not really that comfortable with the camera in my face either. So it was a fun day, but yeah, it wasn’t my comfort zone.” Cam revealed.
Each entry was critiqued on innovation and trends, taste and authenticity, and sustainability.
We asked Cam what he believed set the Mountaineer apart from the rest, “I think it was the provenance of it, the reason that we made it, the care that we’d put into selecting the ingredients, the traceability of those ingredients.
“And I guess it wasn’t over complicated. It wasn’t trying to be anything crazy. It was just simple, humble, great flavours.”
This is the ethos that’s carried through Red Goat as a whole, “simple is always what we’ve tried to embody with everything that we’ve done, traceability is really important to us.
“We want to know that the welfare of what we get is good. We’re not affecting the environment too much. Obviously, as climbers, we do love it, and we spend a lot of time in it, so yeah, that’s kind of at the heart of what we do” Cam told YorkMix.
Aside from the impressive title, Red Goat will be given a five grand cash prize, a pizza master class with Marco Fuso, and a little bag of mozzarella to enjoy.
Pizzas are served up seven days a week at Red Goat Kitchen, with fresh ingredients and recipes from scratch.
For more information on the Mountaineer, or another one of their delicious pizzas, click here.