Bermuda is said to have more golf courses per square inch and more churches per head of population than just about anywhere else in the world. I suggest a third category in which we come pretty much top of the world rankings - the number of Italian restaurants.

There seems to be more ristorantes and trattorias in and around Hamilton than there are unanswered questions at the Bermuda Housing Corporation. This strikes me as a paradox. After all, another couple of boasts that we like to trot out is that we're a highly sophisticated, well-educated bunch of globetrotters with one of the highest standards of living in the world. If there was a profusion of French eateries in town dishing up rich, classic dishes to our business movers and shakers I wouldn't be surprised, yet Hamilton's only French restaurant went belly-up a few years ago.

Italian food, generally speaking, is more rustic, earthy and simplistic than its sophisticated French neighbour, using cheaper produce and less complicated techniques - and yet we lap it up. It seems our passion for pasta is surpassed only by our passion for talking to God and swinging a nine-iron.

On the Italian front, it had been quite a while since I last paid a visit to Primavera. The place had undergone an extensive makeover since I last walked through its doors. It's a vast improvement. Ochre walls lend a warm and cosy atmosphere while plushly-upholstered banquettes, crisp white tablecloths and the unhurried manner of wait staff let you know that dining here will be a slightly more formal, elegant affair than the typical trattoria experience.

So far so good, but would the food match up? Expectations were high. Why? Well, although I hadn't sat down to dinner at Primavera for a year or more, I can vouch for the restaurant's take-out pizzas which are, quite simply the best on the Island.

Primavera takes Italian cuisine further than some rival restaurants by offering diners the diversity of a regional menu, a spattering of fusion cuisine main courses and the choice of ordering sushi from upstairs sister Japanese restaurant, Omasake.

The menu looked promising. While the antipasti and pasta offerings might have lacked imagination, the main course list was long and varied. Decisions, decisions.

To start with, Vongole al vino bianco, a bowl of steaming clams bathed in a garlicky butter. Typically Italian, it's a simple dish of few ingredients that is harder to get wrong than right. Or so you would have thought. Unfortunately it seems one of the main ingredients in Primavera's version is a healthy bucketful of salt. These delicate little molluscs were so heavily seasoned they were almost impossible to eat. A disappointment.

Despite the adventurous entr?e offerings, I was clearly not in an adventurous mood. Ossobucco con risotto is another simple Italian classic. Veal shank slowly braised in tomato sauce and served with Milanese risotto, it's probably about as well-known as lasagna - never usually the star of the show but always dependable and warming - real comfort food.

True to form, the meat easily came away from the bone and was wonderfully tender. So wonderfully tender that I soon realised a knife and fork were unnecessary tools for the job - the whole thing could have been sucked up with a straw. But if a set of teeth might have been ruled optional, a set of taste buds was totally redundant - the whole dish tasted of absolutely nothing. The tomato sauce was watery and the risotto bland. Did I say comfort food? Eating this was like being back in the nursery.

Adventurous diners fared better. A dish of chicken stuffed with hazelnuts served with purple mash and green curry sauce might sound like a bit of a mouthful (Purple mash? Not the sort of starch you imagine heavy breasted Mamas serving up in the back streets of Rome) but it turned out to be a an effective marriage. Different and delicious; the one real success of the night.

The front of house staff not only try hard, they succeed in combining a warm and welcoming presence with competence and efficiency. Throughout the evening, service was excellent. When a couple of friends arrived by chance and decided to join our table mid-meal, our waitress remained unruffled.

It's hard to give the kitchen a bit of a kicking when so much else at Primavera is commendable, but sadly, having set high standards in the dining room, what comes out of the kitchen should be better than hit and miss at best.

Primavera has got a lot of things right, but on this showing the primary reason you dine out - the food - still needs a bit of work. Dinner for two, with a few glasses of wine thrown in but nothing ordered from the restaurant's extensive wine list - was $180; not cheap even by Hamilton standards.