I was looking for the best place to get a bite to eat after our evening visit to the cinema in Nelson. Obviously I ‘googled’ the words best pizza in Nelson and google obliged by listing an establishment with great reviews.

I hit a snag, however, when I asked google maps for the best route from the cinema to the pizzeria. Google showed a world map and said ‘ no route available’. Obviously a software glitch and so I tried again using various permutations – all of them failed. The answer took a few minutes to dawn. The recommended pizza establishment was not in Nelson NZ, but in Nelson, Canada!

An alternative pizza establishment obviously had to be found and strangely enough it was on the first floor of the State Cinema itself! The google map route was equally difficult to understand until I realised that the pizzeria was in the same building.

Stefano’s was a really authentic Italian Pizzeria. The chefs were whirling around the dough and tossing it in the air, before using the pizza shovel to load it into the brick built pizza oven; very crispy and the real Italian article!  It’s another Mr and Mrs Smith recommendation, but be aware that you have to queue up to order your food at the counter and that they close at 9pm …and woe betide you if you ask for an ice cream after closing time when the kitchen staff have just cleaned the kitchen down…