Al Tuguri

Al Tuguri is the Manca-family-run Catalan-Sardinian institution on Via Maiorca. The cobbled medieval lane named for the Catalan-Aragonese island of Majorca. And is the village's longest-running serious Catalan-Italian dining room. The space is a converted 14th-century palazzo with three floors of intimate stone-vaulted dining rooms (each holding eight to twelve covers), original Catalan-Gothic ceiling vaulting, and a total capacity of thirty-six covers.

The cuisine is the village's most distinctive. A deliberately Catalan-Sardinian fusion that draws on both regional traditions. Signatures include a hand-rolled fregola sarda with Sardinian sea-urchin and Catalan parsley; a slow-cooked Logudoro lamb 'a la calatana' (a Catalan-Sardinian preparation with rosemary and saffron); a hand-cut culurgiones with Sardinian saffron and Catalan sobrassada; a wood-fired Mediterranean turbot 'al sale di Cabras' (Sardinian salt-pan crust); the famous 'crema catalana'. The canonical Catalan dessert with Sardinian honey.

The wine list runs to 200 references with deep Sardinian smallholder coverage and a tightly chosen Catalan section (Priorat, Empordà, Penedès) that no other Italian restaurant carries in this depth. Glass pours start at €5 and the by-the-glass programme runs a generous Catalan-Sardinian comparative flight.

Service is family-run. The Manca family rotate the three floors and the captains have worked the property for years. The three-floor format means each dining party occupies an essentially private room; this is the most romantic dining experience in Alghero.

Al Tuguri is the proposal-grade table in Alghero. The three-floor format with eight-to-twelve-cover rooms means total privacy, the Catalan-Sardinian fusion is genuinely distinctive, and the medieval-palazzo setting is the conversation. Book the top-floor two-top. The smallest and most private of the three rooms.