It has been a long time since I have come away from a restaurant extolling the virtues of nothing but the wine.

I have eaten at some of the best restaurants in the world, countless Michelin starred establishments, and have even owned an award-winning restaurant, thus my knowledge of great food, global cuisine, and wine is nuanced. So, let me start on the positive. The wine was a Sicilian rosé, unctuous in its pinkness and roiling with a salinity only proximity to the sea can afford. The winery responsible for the only joy extracted from this meal was Donnafugata. My hats off to them, the artfully-designed label read Lumera 2021. That’s where my mirth commenced and ceased to exist.

Thank goodness for that wine!

Two starters that sounded promising when I read the menu led me down the road to despondency. A local baby octopus served in a tuna sauce spewed water onto my plate when I cut into it, the meat somehow magically vacillating between chewy and mushy. How they managed to achieve this, I have not a clue. The sauce was like the chef had put a can of tuna into the blender and pressed go. The only tasty element on the plate, the caperberries, provided one bright ping of flavour amidst a dish that was unbalanced on so many levels and 100% devoid of appeal. The other starter, a baked scallop, came sitting in a pale sauce akin to babyfood but with zero taste. Celeriac was what the menu had stated. Has this chef never heard of salt, fat, acid, or heat? Might I direct them post haste to the Netflix series on the subject. The plate was lacking in all of the above. I tried it with the tuna sauce from the octopus and added a slice of the caperberry to give it a grasping chance at some flavour. The scallops were bland, the sauce was bland, the colours on the plate, bland again. We left most of it on the dish and asked to move on. The waiter did not bother to enquire if we had enjoyed it. I suppose in a tourist town they really don’t care. They don’t expect to ever see you or serve you again. Mentally, my mind moved to the next course, and I figured we would be safe with pasta. This is Italy, and I had not been disappointed beneath that menu heading in almost a year, but, here too, this establishment was going to prove me wrong. A local shape I did not know called bigoli promised pecorino and truffle—what could possibly go averse there? Somehow, they managed.

Not a shred of piquant, salty pecorino could I glean, and not a hint of truffle. Instead, I pulled a random, crunchy, inedible bay leaf from the noodles like an unwelcome surprise. There was zero joy in this dish. Zero! The texture of the pasty was chewy, but not in a pleasant way, leaving remnants of the taste of raw flour in my mouth.

The next plate I attempted to get down was the braised lamb shank and potatoes. The lamb a specialty as Easter approached, whispered promisingly at a long, slow cook and was almost tender. Too bad it was cold and sitting in a sauce that felt congealed to the plate. Smashing into me, the intense waves of old fry oil from the sad cubes of potatoes surrounding it made me want to cry. Roasting a potato is so easy...why? why? why? And if you have to lower yourself to a quick fry, at least keep your oil clean and give them a crunch. They were barely shaded brown and soggy. I added a pinch of the Maldon salt I carry in my purse to season the lamb and tried to get some supper in amidst this dining fiasco, then washed it down with several long sips of the lovely wine, finishing the glass with a sense of impending doom.

Gluttons for punishment, we ordered dessert, a tiramisu, which, to be generous, was not that bad. It definitely would have been grateful for more coffee, less mascarpone, and better layering, but at least I could eat it without grimacing.

Do your wallet and stomach a favour and keep walking!