Daily Mail
Tom Parker Bowles was less than impressed by a new Italian restaurant puzzlingly named after an inland town in Piedmont while claiming to offer an escape to the coastline of Amalfi, near Naples.
“Money hasn’t just been lavished on the place, but splashed and flashed and frittered and thrown”, he said, resulting in a “Berlusconi boudoir where the rococo lap-dances the baroque… a place so over the top that it makes Sexy Fish look like St John.”
Dish after dish arrived slathered in caviar, lavished with truffles or embellished with foie gras, while the less flashy offerings were just dull, dreary or “eminently forgettable”. “‘Alba Ristorante delivers indulgence in every mouthful,’ coos the website. Urgh. Indulgence il mio culo.”
Tom Parker Bowles - 2025-03-23Daily Mail
Tom Parker Bowles had his suspicions about an Italian restaurant that promises ‘a joyful escape to the sun-drenched coastline of Amalfi’ but takes its name from a Piedmontese town 30 miles inland – and famous for its white truffles.
The decor confirmed his fears. “Money hasn’t just been lavished on the place, but splashed and flashed and frittered and thrown”, resulting in an “over-designed… Berlusconi boudoir where the rococo lap-dances the baroque, while kitsch and camp whoop from the wings… a place so over the top that it makes Sexy Fish look like St John.”
Dishes arrived slathered in caviar or those truffles, and langoustine tartare is embellished with foie gras, so “the fatty liver detracts from the purity of the pristine crustaceans”. Simpler dishes – pizza Margherita, parmigiana, sea bream – are dull, forgettable and decidedly average.
“‘Alba Ristorante delivers indulgence in every mouthful,’ coos the website. Urgh. Indulgence il mio culo.”
Tom Parker Bowles - 2026-03-29
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