Alex Polizzi's Biography

In January 2008, it emerged that Channel Five had appointed Alex Polizzi to take over from Ruth Watson as host of The Hotel Inspector.

Alex Polizzi was the proprietor of the Hotel Endsleigh in Milton Abbot, near Tavistock in Devon.

Alex Polizzi comes from a long line of hoteliers.

Her mother, the hotel designer Olga Polizzi is the sister of Sir Rocco Forte.

Before taking over and stamping their mark on the Endsleigh, Alex and Olga Polizzi had already launched the highly praised Hotel Tresanton at St Mawes in Cornwall.

Before the Tresanton, Alex Polizzi read English at Oxford, trained at the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong, worked for Marco Pierre White at the Criterion, and then worked at various Rocco Forte hotels around the world.

According to The Observer, Alex Polizzi also "started her own wholesale bakery, supplying bread to shops such as Selfridges, Harvey Nicks and Fortnum ... because she fell in love with a baker and for a year she and the boyfriend were baking every night and delivering at dawn."

Alex's father, Count Alessandro Polizzi, an Italian marquess, died in a racing-car accident in 1980 when she was just nine years old.

In 2012, Alex Polizzi became the host of The Fixer on BBC2. Other credits include Chefs on Trial and Alex Polizzi: My Hotel Nightmare.