Alex Polizzi (born Alessandra Maria-Luigia O Polizzi Di Sorrentino; 28 August 1971) is a British hotelier, and the current presenter of the British TV series The Hotel Inspector on Channel 5, taking over from Ruth Watson.
Polizzi comes from a long line of hoteliers, her grandfather being Lord Forte. Her mother, the hotel designer Hon. Olga Polizzi, CBE, is Lord Forte's daughter and the sister of Sir Rocco Forte. Her father was Count Alessandro Polizzi, an Italian marquess, who died in a car accident in 1980.
She read English at St Catherine's College, Oxford, trained at the Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong, and worked for Marco Pierre White before working in the family business The Rocco Forte Collection in Cardiff, Rome and St Petersburg.
Falling in love with a baker, they started their own wholesale bakery, Millers Bespoke Bakery, supplying bread to Selfridges, Harvey Nichols and Fortnum & Mason. Polizzi and her husband Marcus Miller have a daughter called Olga, and she is currently expecting the couple's second child, a boy.
She manages the Hotel Endsleigh in Milton Abbot, near Tavistock in Devon, which is owned by her mother.
She also fronts the BBC Two series Alex Polizzi: The Fixer, which focuses on her turning around family businesses, not just hotels. The first series consisted of six episodes, which aired from 31 January to 6 March 2012. The second series, consisting of another six episodes, aired from 12 February to 19 March 2013.
Famous quotes containing the word alex:
“My smiling child
Named for a noble ancestor
Great hunter or warrior
You will be one day.
Which will give your papa pride
But always I will remember you thus.”
—African Lullaby. As quoted in Roots, by Alex Haley (1976)