A Valletta pizzeria owner is sarcastically promoting his venue’s “hairy pizza” and accusing a former disgrunted former employee who “ate 6 tiramisu and hit on my daughter” of being behind a one-star suspicious review on TripAdvisor.

Italian-run pizzeria Sotto posted an acrid review left by ‘torio74’ in which the individual claimed he had found hair in his “sour” pizza, which he said cost a pretty penny to boot.

“The pizza was nothing to write home about. Never again!” he concluded, giving the restaurant a single star.

Restaurant owner Fausto wasted little time in having his say.

The salty exchange.

“Dear Vittorio,” his reply began. “This review confirms just what an idiot you are.”

That opening salvo set the tone for the rest of the seething reply, in which the owner accused his former charge of being a stalker.

“We worked together for two days and you argued with three clients, two colleagues, broke 13 glasses, ate four pizzas, six tiramisu’, drank an infinite number of canned drinks, wrecked my precarious psychological state and, to top it all.... you hit on my daughter."

The reply ended somewhat more menacingly. “Don’t get offended if the next time we meet ‘by chance’ I give you an affectionate knock on the head”.

The restaurant took a screenshot of Fausto's reply on Tripadvisor and shared it with its 6,300 Facebook followers. 

It is not the first time the pizzeria – which ranks number 6 on TripAdvisor’s list of Valletta restaurants, with an average score of 4.5 out of 5 - has had to deal with a salty reviewer. In February 2018, a man scored the Valletta eatery two stars after complaining that the pizzeria did not have a spare table.

“Dear Peter,” Fausto wrote on that occasion. “Review a restaurant where you didn’t manage to eat because you haven't booked it is like going to the Louvre and complaining about too many people who are there to see the Mona Lisa.”