Finding an Italian restaurant in Delhi that doesn't claim to be the best in town, or even in the country, is really quite hard. But most of the time Italian restaurants in tows end up being quite disappointing. And bad Italian food is just irritating, especially when you know you could be having good Indian food for half the price you're paying your bad pasta.

But there's hope for lovers of good Italian meals: it's inside the Imperial Hotel and its name is San Gimignano.

The names of some of the dishes on the expensive menu are misspelled - which is something that's hard not to find a bit sloppy - but the food is authentically Italian. Its taste is original, with no funny masala after-taste: it's not hard to believe, for a change, that San Gimignano's chef really is Italian. Even if most of the dishes are  slightly elaborate reinvention of traditional ones, the ingredients are balanced with mastery, so still fully belong to nothing else than Italian cuisine. 

The wine list is, of course, almost perfect, and so are the seasonings: selected oil from Sicily and fifteen years old creamy balsamic vinegar from Modena (We suggest you try it on fruit). We didn't try the pizzas yet (and can't wait to go back for that), but the risotto and the pastas are excellent, better than they would be in most restaurants in Italy. 

We also suggest that you try the salads, particularly with mozzarella: there is nothing like the taste of fresh, milky buffalo mozzarella, especially when you are thousands of miles away from Italy. We still can't really figure out how that white delight ended up in our dish so fresh and juicy.

Our last tip is that you fill your stomach before you get to the desserts: they're good, but everything else on the menu is much more worth the space in your belly.