Alba, St Ives

The worst meal that I have had in a long time. I had to ask for the staff to take my order after 20 minutes - we were not even asked what drinks we liked. After 30 minutes I had to ask for bread. After 40 minutes our starters arrived that, quite frankly, shouldn't have been served in a restaurant that bills itself as upmarket. Linguine with watery, insipid tomato sauce; provencale fish should which, similarly, was watery and seemed to be made of tomato and chili to hide the fact that there was no fish; tomato and basil soup which, again was watery.

We canceled our main courses and left, £24 down.

The Alba restaurant is in a great location over looking St Ives harbour and I believe the restaurant is actually located in the former lifeboat building on the wharf. To be honest I found the retaurant lacked a little soul and felt quite sterile - we have eaten here three times now but feel there are better places in St Ives with great atmospheres which do equal, if not better food which seem a lot less formal and more relaxed. Maybe my opinion would change if we had experienced sitting in the window upstairs as then you would be able to take advantage of a good view but unfortunately for the purposes of this review this is not the case.Its not that Alba is not 'nice', but that's just it - its pleasant without really blowing your mind. As per all the good fish resturants in St Ives, Alba features locally caught produce which is lovely and fresh. The menu is pretty good in my opinion but delivery does live up to expectation with portions being on the smaller side when compared to Alba's fish restaurant rivals in St Ives which is another reason why I have marked this restaurant lower than the other two I have reviewed. Alba is not without its accolades as it has won AA fish restaurant of the year in the past so you know its quite good. I think that I have just been spoilt for choice for good fish restaurants in St Ives and when compared to others of the same calibre, Alba doesn't quite hit the nail on the head.