With Michaela Chiappa and the Greedy Italians about, it’s already a bit of a squeeze round the TV pizza oven. But there’s always room for a little Nigella in our lives - and little is the word after what the tabs call a “strict new diet”.

If Nigellissima (BBC Two, 8.30pm, Monday) promised Nigella to-the-max, it was essentially more of the same from the original domestic goddess. Perhaps a little more domestic - fewer fingers were poked sensuously into pots, replaced with countless shots of her captivating children, Chlamydia and Benito.

She aimed to capture the “spirit” of Italy, rather than its strict culinary dogma. So as well as the pasta talk and a bizarre pizza base made of meat, we got recipes for steak & chips (sorry, Tuscan fries) and cheesecake smeared in Nutella.

Critics say she lapsed long ago into self-parody - and maybe that’s true. But her shtick remains entertaining, like watching a racehorse use an iPad. Only she can get away with calling broad beans “utter rapture” or decrying, ashen-faced, the “madness” of omitting fresh oregano, as if she were describing the violence in Syria.

Perhaps her latest show works best as a very ‘meta’ critique of what TV cooking has become. The high point was surely Nigella cooking a post-pub snack called ‘eggs in purgatory’, wearing towering heels and a cocktail dress. After a heavy night at Wetherspoon’s, don’t we all?

Twenty years from now, when we’re watching Georgetta Osborne’s new recipe for roast peasant in goose fat, we’ll think back to Nigella and sigh.