Alex is a celebrity hotelier and the host of the highly acclaimed show, The Hotel Inspector. She comes from a long line of hoteliers – her mother, the hotel designer Olga Polizzi, is the sister of Sir Rocco Forte, and daughter of Lord Forte. She also presents her own programme, ‘Alex Polizzi – The Fixer’ on BBC Two.
Alex Polizzi was born to hotel designer Olga Polizzi, CBE, and Count Alessandro Polizzi, an Italian marquess, Olga read English at Oxford University, and went on to train at the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong. Her next career move was to work for Marco Pierre White at the Criterion, and then various Rocco Forte hotels around the world.
Before taking over and stamping their mark on the Endsleigh, Alex and Olga had already launched the highly praised Hotel Tresanton at St Mawes in Cornwall.
Once she was well established as a hotelier, Alex took on another project: becoming the host of highly acclaimed show, The Hotel Inspector in 2008.
She mastered television, and went on to publish her first book, Alex Polizzi’s Little Black Book of Hotels, sharing her advice on how to enjoy the very best hotels.
“Hotels are like a lovely swan on the surface, desperately paddling underneath. At Endsliegh, a chimney stack caught fire at 6am. I did what I often do in a crisis — I cracked open the champagne while we waited for the fire brigade.”
Falling in love with a baker, she started her own wholesale bakery, supplying bread to Selfridges, Harvey Nichols and Fortnum & Mason.
She manages the Hotel Endsleigh in Milton Abbot, near Tavistock in Devon, which is owned by her mother.
Her confident style and impassable success combine to establish Alex as the ideal motivational speaker, awards host or keynote speaker.