Someone told us this is the best Italian restaurant in Fairbanks, but when we spoke to her about it later, she confessed that it was some time since she visited. I gather that Fairbanksans don’t eat out a lot. While enquiring at the bar if they had a table, a middle aged woman sitting at the bar, turned, looked me straight in the eye, and deadpan, blew a bubble with her chewing gum right in my face, then turned back to her drink without a word.

Luckily they had a table. In fact, they had several. As we walked to our table, the full aroma of Gambardella's came home to me – the smell of Ancient Grease in the house of someone who has not been able to manage their own cleaning for several years. A smell which cries out "Call Social Services"

The waitress was a sweetie, with food stains down her front. We ordered soup, followed in my case with Caesar salad - there was nothing else I fancied on the menu - and in L's case spaghetti marinara. The soup came in tiny pots, the size of a coffee cup. Mine was thick mushroom. Very thick indeed, like Campbells before you dilute it. L's minestrone was OK, but neither was more than lukewarm. The spaghetti was soggy, the marinara sauce was tinned. My Caesar salad was so vinegary I could not eat much. A woman at a nearby table said her salad was very vinegary too.

If you are a parent, you may remember a Mother’s or Father’s Day, when your children – as a treat – cooked you a meal. They made all your favourite dishes, but with endearing mistakes, like not diluting the soup; serving it lukewarm in a coffee cup; using lashings of malt vinegar in the salad dressing. The whole experience was rather like this, with the chewing gum woman at the bar in the role of your kid’s friend with no manners who doesn’t like you.

It would not be fair to judge Gambardella's by London standards, Fairbanks has a short tourist season and it must be a challenge to obtain experienced staff for a couple of months. And regular refurbishment must be hard to justify for such a short season. But by any standards, Gambardella’s is a truly dismal experience - don't go.