Lunyalita win Liverpool’s annual Pancake Day Race again

Liverpool’s traditional Pancake Day race, pitting the city’s top chefs against each other to celebrate Shrove Tuesday, has seen Lunyalita’s Alex Hopkins win for the second year running. 

Held in the gardens of Liverpool Parish Church, the annual race is designed to see how the city’s top chefs stack up, as they have to complete laps of the garden whilst flipping a pancake. The pancake must be thick enough to withstand the outdoors, light enough to be flipped cleanly while running, and must not fall from the pan. 

The winner receives an engraved pancake pan, presented by the Rector of Liverpool, the Revd Canon Dr Crispin Pailing. 

Alex Hopkins, who won the race in 2022 as well, describes himself as the “defending undisputed champion”. To be a repeat winner takes, he says ‘tenacity, courage and modesty”. 

The origin of pancakes on Shrove Tuesday lies in the tradition of using up remaining fat and dairy products before ‘fasting’ began in Lent. Many Christians still keep the tradition of giving something up as a way of preparing themselves for Easter. Held originally in the 1980s, the Pancake Day race was revived in Liverpool in the mid 2000s.