Alloro

It’s difficult to assess this place it claims to be Italian, but there was very little Italian about the food my party of four had last week. Part of the problem was cultural dissonance: the Italian approach to eating (basically: primi, following by secondi) doesn’t comport well with what Britons expect in a restaurant (basically: starters, then mains, then dessert). Service was slightly chaotic, but in a cheerful way, and one can ascribe some of the chaos to teething: the restaurant had opened for business just a week or so previously. (Front of house was either absent or neglectful.) But the menu is more difficult to understand; for example, what is challoumi, a Cypriot/​Cretan cheese, doing on it? Many of the pizza toppings would be viewed, in Italy, as travesties. And, of course, there are the misspellings (‘brushcetta’ — really?).
The up sides: a decent (Italian!) wine list with some good deals on it. And the food, although cooked and presented with minimal originality or imagination, was, on the whole, competent and not overpriced. Grilled sardines (‘savdelle’, with a –v that our waitress was happy to pronounce) were cooked plainly but perfectly, as was the sea bass. Deep-​fried squid was crispy but tender: some skilled frying at work. The grilled ‘squid’ was in fact a seppia, not in itself a problem but its grilling was a bit anemic. The only treatment any of these sea creatures received was lemon and (vague) olive oil (‘à la grecque’). Lamb shanks, again, were competently cooked, but not a way you would call ‘Italian’; it reminded me of the competent ‘Greek Diner’ cuisine so widespread in the United States. Each dish was presented either on a scattering of plain, raw spinach leaves, or with a mixed salad of no distinction.
So only three stars because of all the perceived failings. On the other hand Letchworth needs restaurants, however uninspiring, so yes: as many as three stars. And one can hope that they will up their game. After all, anyone can!