I'm just back from spending a blissful ten days in Sorrento with my parents, during which time I climbed volcanoes, visited the location of one of my favourite films, wandered the eerie streets of Pompeii and Herculanaeum and tried to take photos of lizards basking in the hot sun.

I also went to quite a lot of restaurants, of which La Favorita was certainly the most expensive...

La Favorita - O'Parrucchiano

Situated conveniently on Sorrento's main Corsa, five minutes' walk from Tasso Square, La Favorita is a bit of a magical dining experience. The interior of the restaurant is beautifully decorated, with several floors, getting more and more lavish until you reach the top, where it pretty much turns into a covered garden.

It was out in the garden where we are on Tuesday night, on our 'expense be damned, we're on holiday' meal (you have to have one of these every holiday). The tables are set under lemon trees which act as a canopy, and each table comes complete with an insect-repellent candle - romantic and practical at the same time...

The menu

The restaurant's menu is huge and contains all the pizza, pasta, antipasta and local treats that you would expect, from the veal escalopes to the marinara pizzas, not to mention a huge array of seafood. When it came to the seafood, the menu was very clear which dishes might include ingredients which had been frozen (many of the fish dishes are seasonal, after all), which is something you don't tend to see in the UK too often.

I opted for spatchcocked baked quail with roast potatoes and mushrooms as side dishes. The quail was €12, with the vegetable dishes at about €4 each. This was about standard for our meals in Sorrento.

Everything in the menu was listed both in Italian and English, and much of it also in French. I'm trying to learn Italian in my quiet vague way, so it was a nice way of building a bit of extra vocabulary for me. I had a bash at ordering my food in Italian, and didn't get laughed at, so yay.

The wine list was huge. We went for a bottle of the house red in the end, but that was mostly because we didn't think we'd be able to read the whole wine list before the restaurant closed! Although the house wine was around €15, true connoisseurs will be pleased to note that the prices went up to at least €160 a bottle for the top-end stuff (they probably go higher, we stopped looking when we got to €160 a bottle). It goes without saying that the house wine was excellent and we didn't really feel that we'd stinted ourselves by opting for it. We also got a bottle of still mineral water.

We arrived as the restaurant was opening, at around seven in the evening, and we were the first to take our seats under the lemon trees. It soon filled up, but the service remained swift and attentive throughout the night. Our food took a little while to arrive, but we were blown away when it did get there. Three quail, spatchcocked and arranged on the plate with a lettuce and tomato garnish, surrounded by the vegetable dishes on side plates. Dessert looked like an unlikely prospect.

The food was good, the wine was excellent, the service was friendly and the atmosphere was amazing, dining under a canopy of lemon trees on a warm Italian evening in early October. It's even good for disabled access, as there's a side entrance through the car park from the place where all the hotel shuttlebuses drop you off by the Old Wall.

So why only four stars? Well, it's cheeky. La Favorita has a cover charge of a couple of Euros per person which is pretty much standard practice. But they also have a service charge of 15% which... well, it is listed on the bill but I think someone with even less Italian than me could miss it, to be honest. And of course, when the bill came, our cheeky waiter made a great play of bringing an extra plate 'for a cash tip'. Which to my amazement, my father actually obliged to the tune of €10! His reasoning was that the waiters were unlikely to see any of the service charge and is, I suppose, fair enough, but it rankled a bit with me, to be honest.

Dinner for three people including a bottle of mineral water, a bottle of house wine, main dishes, six side dishes and two desserts (I had a coffee, those three quail, gorgeously tender and flavourful as they were, defeated my appetite - my parents had tiramisu and wild strawberries, and both were very tasty indeed as they let me try them), not to mention the controversial service charge, came to €104. Significantly more expensive than any other meal we ate on holiday but we had a fantastic night there and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone looking for a special meal in Sorrento.

The restaurant is huge, with probably more than a hundred tables spread over its various floors. It does get fully booked though (often by cruise ships), so reserve early. They also make it available for wedding receptions, which given that it's a three minute walk from the cathedral must make for an amazing day for many couples. I also had a very brief look at the kitchen (I thought it was the way to the toilets, I told you my Italian was bad) and it's absolutely spotless, even if it is the size of the Batcave.

Eat. Enjoy. Take a heavy wallet.