Award Winning Carrickfergus Restaurant Community Support During Covid

Castello Italia was named Ulster’s 2022 Takeaway Restaurant of the Year at the recent YesChef Takeaway Awards 2022 and was also highly acclaimed in the 2022 Ulster Pizza of the Year category.

The annual awards run by YesChef Ireland are meant to celebrate the stars of the sector and, as program director Nikki Smith explains, there have been many stars during the pandemic.

“We held our first Takeaway Awards in 2019 and little did we know what lay ahead of us all and what challenges the industry would face. Food is not just a necessity, it is a joy, a pleasure from life, a sensory experience, something that lifts your spirits at the end of a hard week!

“Owners and employees of takeaways across the country were at the forefront with smiles on their faces and a willingness to go the extra mile.

“Restaurants have switched to takeaway food delivery and all of this has improved quality and raised standards. And I’m not saying this lightly, each business was judged independently and the standards were excellent. I should note that the researchers also found an excellent level of service.”

Commenting on the recognition, Arthur Kufai, owner of Castello Italia, located in the Scotch Quarter area of ​​Carrickfergus, said: “We are thrilled to be named Ulster’s takeaway restaurant in 2022.

“When the pandemic hit, like many companies, we had to change our offering to continue serving our customers. We quickly recalibrated and launched a takeaway service that proved to be phenomenally popular.

“As Covid restrictions have eased, we have realized that many people remain wary of social interactions, so we have maintained our takeaway food offering to satisfy our loyal customer base.”

Mr. Kufai continued, “As a business, we have previously won YesChef Best Italian Restaurant awards, but being new to the takeaway industry and achieving this success shows that our approach was the right one.

“We have applied our restaurant standards to our takeaway offerings and customers recognize and appreciate that.”

Opened in 2017, Castello Italia aims to offer the classic dishes that are synonymous with Italy in a casual cafe and restaurant setting spread over two floors overlooking Belfast Lake.