Wow, that was easy. Just three weeks into my campaign to find the perfect ready meal, and I think I’ve cracked it. This week I’ve enjoyed, in no particular order: fishcakes dense with organic salmon and smoked haddock; a zingy green chicken curry scented with kaffir lime leaves and fresh Thai basil; some dinky round Niçoise courgettes filled with a ratatouille; and a beef lasagne with Aberdeen Angus and proper béchamel. Each and every one tasty, healthy and nutritious, and from fridge to plate within ten minutes. Job done.

Admittedly, there are a couple of things I should point out. Firstly, for the time being, you’ll have to make your way to a shop on New Kings Road in London to pick up the meals. Secondly, they are technically “ready” only at the moment you take them in their hermetically sealed containers from the fridge. To get to that stage you have first to, er, make them yourself.

Here’s how it works. You log on to the Kitchen’s website at least 48 hours ahead to book your slot and decide which of eight dishes you fancy making. At the allotted time you go to the shop, where you are directed to your own workspace in the sleek, minimalist kitchen, which is lined with everything you need to make your chosen dishes – from fillets of fish and freshly chopped parsley to pre-made bolognese and béchamel sauce. You simply whisk the occasional egg, crush a few potatoes and shape your fishcakes, or build up the layers of the lasagne and seal them in bio-degradable boxes. As you finish one dish, everything is cleared away ready for you to start the next. Effectively it is batch cooking, only without the cooking – or the washing-up. Everything will keep for four to five days, so in less than an hour you’ve got the week’s meals sorted, at about £5 a portion (less the more you make).

The Kitchen is owned by Natalie Richmond and chef Thierry Laborde, a protégé of Alain Ducasse. They hope to appeal not just to professional singletons and couples who can’t or can’t be bothered to cook, but also to busy mothers who haven’t time to rustle up homemade dinners. And they hope at some point to expand beyond southwest London.

“Lots of people aspire to scratch-cook,” says Richmond. “They’re watching the TV programmes, buying the cookbooks, but they’re buying God knows how many take­aways and ready meals. We’re providing them with a good alternative, by taking away all the hard work. That Thai green curry, for example, has 23 ingredients. You’d open the cookbook and think, ‘Oh help.’ ”

I like the idea, and the meals I tried were all as good as if I’d made them completely myself (and considerably better, in the case of the green curry). But everyone to whom I’ve mentioned the Kitchen has come back with one obvious question. If Laborde has already done all the hard work, why not just get him to finish it off, and simply drop by to pick up the completed dish?

Well, they’ve thought of that, and you can. But, as Richmond says: “Where’s the experience in that?” She’s adapted the concept from the American “easy meal” craze, a franchise that has swept the States over the past five years. But over there it tends to be more about quantity than quality. The kitchens are often in out-of-town malls, where moms beaver away to fill the free­zer. Here Richmond wants to make it more of a social experience. “It’s easy to go out and buy ready meals, but I’m hoping we’re making it more fun,” she says. “You can come with friends, have a glass of wine, and enjoy yourselves while doing something useful.”

www.visitthekitchen.com

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