Alla Torre is in a great location and has good standards. It is a relaxed but smart restaurant with a lot of fine touches.

Spaghetti Bolognese is regularly placed high on the list of top ten great British menu items, usually close to lasagne and chicken tikka. Italian food, imported as a concept in Britain, is often a sad caricature of authentic Italian food. For the sake of appealing to the British palate and due to ease of cooking and lack of the right ingredients, going out for an Italian meal in Britain more or less brings up images of Spaghetti Bolognese, Pizza Margherita (or Hawaiian, if you are feeling exotic), tiramisu, plastic-tasting ready-grated parmesan, very long pepper mills, and small water colours of seaside villages. Authenticity aside, it is the lack of variety that is disappointing. Granted, pizza and pasta are now accepted as characteristic Italian dishes not just in Britain, but probably in most countries.

As more and more Italian restaurants start to open in Shanghai, it is interesting to see what sticks here. This new wave of Italian restaurants, of all levels of quality, is capable of reaching a large number of customers. Already a few low-price Chinese chains have dozens of outlets around the city and are busy inventing their own version of Italian food. One of my most surprising eats has been a blueberry and walnut pizza. I am not opposed to innovations like this necessarily, especially since the polarization towards the same pizza and pasta dishes is a pity. It is just that so many wonderful Italian culinary traditions have been left behind.

Fortunately, in Lujiazui, there is a very nice Italian restaurant where there is much more than just pizza and pasta, although the pizza and pasta that they do offer is not bad either. Alla Torre stands in its own villa in a valley between the skyscrapers of the Pudong riverside. The management wants it to be a relaxed place where you can go to escape the office and see some green – there are wall flowers and a small fountain you can see from the tall windows surrounding the dining area. Although there is a lot of construction in the area at the moment, Alla Torre will be very well-placed once this is finished. Inside there is also a bar area and comfortable seating for your pre- and post-dinner drink. The kitchen is open to the restaurant so you can see chef Domenico putting the finishing touches on all the dishes before they go out, which is a sign of the restaurant’s confidence.

Alla Torre is smart but does not try to offer fine dining. With the chefs working busily within eyesight and with the large televisions showing Jamie Oliver, this is more in the theme of relaxed, after-work dinner. That said, the food was very good and the service excellent. The waiters were polite and attentive. And most commendably they asked whether we would like still or sparkling rather than whether we would like water at all. There was wonderful bread on the table during the meal. This is one of the first things that is done away with in exported, simplified Italian cooking, yet it is always on the European table.

The Carpaccio of Australian beef was lovely (and here comes my only real complaint of the meal, albeit a luxury complaint) but there was too much of it. With scattered rocket and cherry tomatoes, parmesan and Chinese mushrooms tossed in olive oil and lemon juice, it was absolutely delicious, but I would not have felt over-charged if it had been half the size. And then Zuppa di Pesce, another Italian mainstay that you either don’t find or find badly done in boring restaurants. Here it was zingy and full of tasty bits. The salmon with braised celery and caramelised onions on linguine was enjoyable if a little uneventful, and my dining partner enjoyed his grill platter. Finally, we shared a pizza, which was baked in a pizza oven imported from Italy. Having eaten so many unpleasant pizzas in phony restaurants, I am glad to say that this simple pizza was all the wonderful things a pizza can be: light and crispy and with enough good mozzarella for you to enjoy tasting it, without leaving bubble-gum-like strands sticking to your chin as they snap and swing down after you take a bite. A thoroughly enjoyable meal finished with an exquisite homemade Limoncello digestif.

Alla Torre is in a great location and has good standards. It is a relaxed but smart restaurant with a lot of fine touches. For me the standouts were the Carpaccio, the Limoncello and the excellent service.