{"id":141494,"date":"2025-10-23T22:47:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T22:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/141494\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T22:47:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T22:47:14","slug":"a-scathing-review-of-la-dolce-vita-that-will-mortify-every-italian-chelsea-moved-to-rome-for-culture-and-romance-but-says-the-nations-famed-cuisine-is-inauthentic-while-the-men-are-far-too-clin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/141494\/","title":{"rendered":"A scathing review of La Dolce Vita that will mortify every Italian! Chelsea moved to Rome for culture and romance but says the nation’s famed cuisine is ‘inauthentic’ – while the men are far too ‘clingy’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Romantic evenings dining on some of the best cuisine in the world with charming Italian men, against a backdrop of rich history and culture – this is what Chelsea Arganbright expected when she first moved to Rome.<\/p>\n

But in a scathing critique likely to incense proud Italians, the 36-year-old has revealed why her Dolce Vita dream turned out to be more of a living nightmare, where she was disappointed by the famous food, put off by the ‘clingy’ men and priced out by American tourists.<\/p>\n

The luxury hotel branding designer from London<\/a>, had been living in Sydney<\/a>, Australia, but soon found herself bored of the ‘lack of culture and intellectual stimulation’ Down Under and decided to move to Europe.<\/p>\n

But instead of returning to her hometown, Chelsea packed her entire life into three suitcases and applied for a Digital Nomad visa in Italy<\/a>, with Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday as her muse.<\/p>\n

Yet the Italian capital largely failed to impress, delivering neither on the cuisine nor the suitors – while the number of American visitors that descend on the city each week also ruined the designer’s picturesque ideal.<\/p>\n

Chelsea told The Daily Mail how ‘a lot of women get their hearts broken here, because they expect something different’.<\/p>\n

She added: ‘I’ve known a lot of friends who had been excited about dating Italian men, and then they were very quickly put off.<\/p>\n

\"For <\/p>\n

For many Britons, the idea of uprooting their lives and moving abroad is just a dream, but Chelsea Arganbright (pictured) turned her fantasy in to reality when she moved from London to Rome via Sydney<\/p>\n

‘People who move here will say they won’t even date Italian men anymore, they’ll just stick to other expats because\u00a0when you’re on a dating app, and you start talking to someone, they expect you to be talking to them non-stop.<\/p>\n

‘And then if you exchange numbers but don’t text them back within two hours, they’re saying “What’s wrong? Where did you go? Are you not interested?”\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘In the UK, you’d be like, this guy is a stalker, or he has a problem. They can be charming, they’ll say all the right things, and then their interest might fade as quickly as it occurred.\u00a0It’s love bombing and some gaslighting thrown in.’<\/p>\n

Perhaps even more surprisingly, Chelsea found herself disappointed by Italy’s famous cuisine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A lack of gluten-free options and poor variety of dishes also bored Chelsea, and even the country’s famous coffee couldn’t win her over.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘I love matcha lattes and back in Sydney I’d get a matcha latte for $5AUD (\u00a32.44) but here I’m paying \u20ac5 (\u00a34.35).<\/p>\n

And while Rome is widely considered a world-class food destination, Chelsea said the city didn’t have many great restaurants, only ‘overpriced chains’.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She explained that her supermarket shop was ‘not that much cheaper than back in Australia’ and she felt that prices were hiked up because of the volume of tourists.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Dreaming <\/p>\n

Dreaming of a romantic dolce vita, the luxury hotel branding design specialist (pictured) packed her entire life in three suitcases and set up home in the Italian capital in October 2024\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"But <\/p>\n

But life in the ancient metropolis quickly turned into a nightmare for the 36-year-old (pictured)<\/p>\n

‘It depends where it is, but I felt some places boosted the prices quite a lot because they know the tourists come in,’ she said.<\/p>\n

Chelsea also explained that she found the food was not only disappointing but not always suitable for her gluten and dairy-free diet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She described trying to eat traditional Roman dishes like cacio e pepe as almost impossible.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘It’s not easy to find good quality, authentic food. It’s almost impossible to find those two things together.’\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘I would love to just go out and find a piece of fish or a piece of chicken but they’ll [restaurants] add cheese to everything, and I just want something healthy, so I end up cooking at home a lot, and then going out for lunch and drinks.’<\/p>\n

Alongside the disappointing dating scene and food, Chelsea\u00a0described her rent and bills as ‘a bit of a surprise’: she was left shocked at her total rent of \u20ac1,550 (\u00a31,346) per month for a two-bed flat in the Monteverde area of Rome.<\/p>\n

In Sydney, the brand expert had been paying roughly $1,600 AUD, the equivalent to \u20ac893 (\u00a3775) for her flat, and was shocked to pay more than double in the Italian capital.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘It definitely added up. I ended up having to get a housemate. I’d\u00a0never had a housemate before, so that was an interesting experience in itself,’ she said.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The seasoned traveler said she found it difficult to enjoy the habits of her Australian life including matcha lattes (pictured) and the gym<\/p>\n

Chelsea began sharing her apartment with an Italian man, but instead of a steamy summer fling, she found he rarely helped around the house, and was so messy she avoided him at all costs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She said: ‘It was so frustrating, because with older Italian men, they are still very much stuck in the mindset that\u00a0cleaning is a woman’s job, so that was very difficult, because I’d clean the floors, and there were really heavy boot marks in there all the time, all over the bathroom, the kitchen, everywhere.<\/p>\n

‘Finally, I said “please can you help clean” but he would just say “that wasn’t me, I wouldn’t do that”, but\u00a0I have a Japanese policy indoors, so I don’t even wear my shoes.<\/p>\n

‘He kept denying it, and finally, he did do the floors, but then he ended up skipping out on the move-out clean, he just cleaned his dishes and thought that was enough.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘I wanted an Italian person because I thought it was going to help me learn the language, but in the end, I just tried to avoid him at all costs.’\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chelsea found her encounter with an Italian housemate so frustrating she has vowed never to move in with anyone again and as soon as she could, she relocated.<\/p>\n

She said: ‘I will not ever be living with a housemate again. But it was a good situation, because it allowed me to learn a lot about navigating aspects of the culture.’<\/p>\n

The luxury hotel brand strategist was also surprised by the salaries in Rome and said she had been more financially stable in Sydney and London.<\/p>\n

\"Chelsea <\/p>\n

Chelsea claimed Italian men are difficult to date and she has steered clear of them, complaining of ‘love-bombing’ and ‘gas-lighting’<\/p>\n

‘I think, given the cost of living, it’s quite expensive here,’ she said. ‘In Sydney paying that low amount for rent, it was great. And in Rome, there’s less opportunities locally to make money.’<\/p>\n

As a result of the changes in personal finances, Chelsea confessed she’d had to make several sacrifices, including giving up her gym membership and personal trainer.<\/p>\n

She said: ‘I’m very much in to health and wellness but my own wellness has probably gone down a bit because I haven’t been able to afford that sort of thing.<\/p>\n

‘In Sydney I would go to the chiropractor twice a week, go to a PT once or twice a week, get a remedial massage every 10 days.<\/p>\n

‘At this point in time, it’s not doable in Italy for me, because that financial stability, isn’t there.’<\/p>\n

Chelsea added that she had managed to find a gym in Rome that catered for the kinds of classes she liked but found she was paying West London prices for poorer services and didn’t feel it was value for money.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The brand expert also said the work culture was a shock to her as she described a lack of organisation.<\/p>\n

‘In Australia, everything is laid back, it’s super cruisy but organised, but here it’s laid back and disorganised,’ she said.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The brand designer found the laid-back culture overwhelming and has struggled to be as efficient as possible<\/p>\n

‘People might make plans and then they fall through, or you go to a work lunch that goes on for three hours and then I’ve scheduled back-to-back meetings, and at 3pm I have to cancel them because the lunch is still going on and I can’t leave because we’ve hardly talked about what we’re actually supposed to be talking about.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘The warmth and connection is lovely but at the same time, I don’t have time to be doing this – the number of times I’ve said “oh God! I don’t have time for this!” – it’s been quite a lot.’<\/p>\n

She added: ‘The same things that make the country so wonderful and people so engaging are the same things that make it really frustrating at times.’<\/p>\n

Chelsea revealed she couldn’t stand the tourists either, complaining of the number of American visitors that descend on the ancient Italian capital every week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She said: ‘When you’re trying to get about in the centre of Rome and there’s hordes of American tourist groups, they can be unaware of their surroundings and the European way – moving around the space and taking up space, and it’s quite different with Brits.’<\/p>\n

Chelsea added that she struggled to find cafes and restaurants that were authentic, affordable, but still luxurious – and found there simply weren’t that many.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She posted in a Facebook group asking for recommendations and found that none of the 5,000 members had any to add to her list.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

She said: ‘I’m always struggling to figure out where to go, it’s absolutely ridiculous, we’re in the middle of Rome, why should this be a struggle to try to find somewhere?\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘There’s only two places to get a good acai bowl. So when I want to catch up [with a friend], we end up just having an acai bowl in a little place by her which is still quite touristy.<\/p>\n

‘There’s nowhere like in London. I could name you a billion places that I’d love to go to that are so lovely there. But here it’s very touristy, so it means that all the prices are quite hiked up and the quality is not great.’\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

She added that she missed her favourite London eateries and brands and said she hadn’t managed to find anything as delicious as Farm Girl in Notting Hill, noted for its smoothies and ‘healthy’ brunches.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She said: ‘There’s only a handful of places but nothing like Farm Girl in Notting Hill.\u00a0 Notting Hill Coffee Project, I miss that so much.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Those\u00a0little places that are independent and really cute and feel good to be in, it’s really hard to find that in Rome, so I think I miss that a lot.’<\/p>\n

Other cafes Chelsea missed were Megan’s on the High Street and Ottolenghi as well as Michelin-starred restaurants including CORE by Claire Smyth.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although Chelsea was far from impressed with Rome’s restaurant and bar offerings, she conceded that their supermarket produce was delicious and good quality.<\/p>\n

‘The ingredients that you can find are beautiful, canned fish, olives, all that produce is really good quality, it’s really lovely,’ she said.<\/p>\n

But Chelsea did have some positive experiences and said she found the locals friendly and open and even though she was far from fluent, she managed to get by.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘The nice thing about Italians is that if you try to say two words in Italian and they know you’re a foreigner, then they’ll say “oh thank you, you’re so good with your Italian”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘You don’t even have to try, they’re so lovely about it.\u00a0Not knowing the language is such a non-issue,’ she said.<\/p>\n

For Chelsea’s next move, she is considering northern Italy or somewhere closer to the Swiss border to take advantage of their more structured culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Romantic evenings dining on some of the best cuisine in the world with charming Italian men, against a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[1128,118,18,117,19,17,371,3521,130,5792],"class_list":{"0":"post-141494","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-dailymail","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-italy","15":"tag-lifestyle","16":"tag-london","17":"tag-sydney"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115425918613827465","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}