Eating out in Lytham St Annes – Allegria and Imli restaurants

One of the best things about being on holiday for me is not having to cook. For N he loves the hot breakfasts too, although our latest break in Lytham St Annes was staying at Hy Hotel. It’s an aparthotel so self catering with only continental breakfast option. But we made the most of eating out for dinner, with lunches just grabbing what we could when out and about.  There are plenty of places to eat in St Annes on Sea where we stayed, but also further along the coast into Lytham.

Eating out in Lytham St Annes

The first night we decided to just grab something easy and fast at the music festival happening opposite our hotel. There was very little choice, just burgers or hotdogs really, so a bit disappointing.  We did go back another night, after eating elsewhere and wandering along the beach, to have crepes for dessert.

Thankfully the rest of the seaside town has more restaurants on offer.

Being there over a bank holiday didn’t make it easy though, and several places didn’t open on Mondays or Tuesdays. So I’d definitely recommend checking online for opening times before just turning up.

If you’re visiting at a busy time, and definitely want to eat in a certain place, do book. We found we had to go upstairs to the bar area and wait in Allegria for a table to be made available even though we were eating quite early.

Allegria – italian restaurant

It’s nice to eat italian in somewhere that isn’t a chain restaurant, so we decided on Allegria which is a restaurant off the main crossroads in St Annes.

If they don’t have a table available you’ll be sent upstairs to wait in their bar. The restaurant wasn’t full at the front, so I’m not sure whether they just do this for everyone. Because we were only a two we did jump ahead of the other two groups already waiting up there. 

It was quite nice to have a quiet drink beforehand, and we could overlook the street and see the goings on. 

The restaurant itself is quite long and thin. We didn’t have the best viewpoint being along the walkway out to the back, but the waiting staff were attentive and always on the go.

We decided to share a garlic bread, expecting it to be a starter. But when it came it was normal pizza size, and arrived alongside our mains. So we must have got mixed up with thinking it would be starter size. It was very tasty though.

I chose spaghetti carbonara, as it’s one of my favourite dishes. It really was tasty, and the perfect amount of pasta. 

N wanted to go for the Penne Calabrese first of all, but the waiter advised that it was very spicy. So he decided to err on the side of caution (mainly because I wouldn’t want to eat it if it was too spicy for him). Instead he chose the Spaghetti della Mamma which was meatballs and tomato sauce.

When it arrived we were a bit blown away. It was a huge portion, probably bigger than I could eat. Five large meatballs and a mound of pasta.  He gave it a good go, and I even had some of his remaining meat, but we couldn’t get through more than half.

It meant that sadly, we turned down dessert.

Allegria is a nice family friendly italian restaurant, with lots of choice on the menu. But don’t fill up on starters, or check size of portions when ordering as some can be very generous.

Imli – indian restaurant

N likes curry but we usually eat it as part of world buffet type restaurants, or I might order it in a pub and he’ll try a bit. But we that maybe we should try him in a proper Indian restaurant and decided to go to Imli.

Imli is just along from the main crossroads, up Wood Street. When we arrived they’d only just opened so a couple of people were waiting on takeaways, but otherwise we were the first ones eating in.

It’s a fair sized restaurant, and the staff were very attentive. When other people arrived and wanted the door shut, but we wanted the breeze to keep coming through, they were happy for them to move around to sit elsewhere. 

We never go wild with our curry choices, although there was a big selection which made it hard to choose. In the end N had choices from the early bird set menu options – poppadom to start, chicken korma with naan. I opted for chicken tikka masala from the normal menu with rice and poppadom.  It meant we could share the rice and naan.  

There were some different poppadom chutneys that I wasn’t sure what they were, but N was game to try them all and even liked some of the spicier ones.

Both meals were delicious and good portion size with plenty of meat in the sauce. N ate most of his although I ate his last bit of chicken. For me, I never find there’s enough rice so I’d have liked more. That’s pretty normal for me in most restaurants though. It would be good if there were options for small, regular and large options.

It was a really nice meal out, and a good experience for N’s first proper indian restaurant meal.

We had hoped to go to the dessert place next door after our indian meal, but it had shut early, presumably because it was too quiet.  For the end of the summer holidays I would have expected it to be busier down that road given there’s a few restaurants, but there weren’t many people about. 

If you’re eating out in Lytham St Annes area, I’d recommend trying these restaurants. And follow up afterwards a nice walk down by the beach.

What’s your dish of choice at indian or italian restaurants? Which restaurants in Lytham St Annes would you recommend?

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