Sunday Mercury's Jonny Dangerous tackles world's hottest pizza

Jun 21 2009 by Jonny Greatrex, Sunday Mercury

He has duelled with Britain’s number one wheelchair fencer, fed man-eating tigers and abseiled down the Sunday Mercury office. Now reporter Jonny Greatrex, aka Jonny Dangerous, has been challenged to eat “the world’s hottest pizza”.

MY last eating challenge, an attempt to tackle a monster 6,000 calorie sandwich, ended in abject failure.

The mighty Sarnie Schwarzenegger was a full loaf of bread laced with more breakfast items than the big man himself could have ever packed away.

My next opponent was different though.

It was more of a lightweight – but was packing a huge amount of heat.

For this challenge I found myself at Bella Italia in Birmingham city centre staring at a pizza calabria, covered in scorching hot njuda sausage.

The restaurant chain claim to have created a dish spicier than the hottest curries and have even applied to the Guinness Book of World Records to get official recognition.

The fierce meat hails from southern Italy, and so did my authentic Latin waiter Pino Viva.

“This sausage is common in my country but you cannot get it anywhere here,” the 31 year-old Neapolitan said.

“You break it into pieces and spread it on the pizza, then when it’s cooking the juices ooze out so the spiciness goes everywhere.”