After “What’s the best restaurant in London?”, the question I’m most often asked while doing anonymous charity work among the capital’s destitute is: “What’s Michael Winner like?” To which the answer has to be: “He’s a god” — probably one of those crudely carved ones from the South Seas with its tongue hanging out.

Winner is the only journalist who employs market researchers to find out how many readers he has (about four times as many as are reading this). He is the Hannibal Lecter of critics: he makes a meal of the waiters. “Darling, if I wanted dozens of staff fussing around me, I could have stayed at home.”

Actually, he’s secretly far, far nicer than he likes you or the confederation of maître d’s to know, and I don’t get to lunch him anything like enough. We can’t do dinner, because by 8.30pm he’s in bed with some compliant starlet (on the telly). So I took him to the newly revamped Grill Room at the Savoy, along with Terry “Smudger” O’Neill and Jeremy King, who co-refounded the Ivy.

Of all the old Establishment restaurants, the Savoy Grill is the only one I feel any fondness for. It was a wonderfully bland room with immaculate service. They would carve the smoked salmon at your table, and steak-and-kidney pie came in a ceramic bucket with a nappy napkin, and poached oysters bubbling on the side. The ribs of beef were processed on a chariot pushed by a chef in a toque like a papal announcement, who you tipped half-a-crown.

The food may not have lived up to the restrained plutocracy of the room, but it was the godfather of all power lunches. Every pinstriped Croesus had his favourite booth, and all Fleet Street editors ate here on Fridays. It was here that I was first offered a contract on this paper. “What do you want from journalism?” asked the deputy editor. Sir, I want to be rich, famous and respected. “Will you settle for two out of three?” I was the first to arrive, and Angelo, the old maître d’, who has gratifyingly agreed to stay, welcomed me as if I were New Year’s Eve. I once turned up without a reservation, having not been for two years. “Mr Gill, how nice to see you,” he said. “Your coffee’s on the way, but I’m afraid we don’t have the oysters you like.” And before you put your fingers down your throat, this was long before I was a restaurant critic. He is quite simply the best.

The room hasn’t so much been redesigned as given plastic surgery. The wooden panelling has been scrubbed and lifted a shade, the lighting has been made prettier and kinder, and a couple of pillars have been silver-plated.

It looks the same, but younger and, actually, more authentic. The Savoy is the most architecturally interesting and innovative of all London hotels. Built by D’Oyly Carte from the proceeds of Gilbert and Sullivan, it was the most daringly designed structure of its day. The first to be entirely electrified, it had its own well and the best shower heads — and it still boasts its own theatre.

The kitchen has been taken over by Marcus Wareing, the chef at Pétrus. He and Gordon Ramsay are carving up all of London’s old hotel dining rooms. The new menu has had rather more radical surgery than the room. It’s still essentially English carvery food, but aggressively modern. The schoolish dish of the day has been replaced with a set lunch for a very reasonable £21. Three courses à la carte are £35.

We started with a plate of smoked salmon and gravadlax, which is still sliced at the table in slivers you can read a newspaper through. The salmon is as good as you’ll get if you like the texture of wild salmon, as opposed to the softness of lox. The gravadlax is there to remind you how much better smoked salmon is.

I just had to have the omelette Arnold Bennett, made with smoked haddock and gruyère béchamel. It was invented here. “Who was Arnold Bennett?” asked Winner. He was a writer, a wit and a critic who came here after the theatre to file his reviews. They invented this dish as a light supper and named it after him. “So who’s Gordon Bennett, then?” It’s omelette Gordon Bennett if they drop it.

There used to be a man here who did nothing but make perfect, smooth omelettes, which he sealed with a hot knife. Now they come in a copper chafing dish as a fishy-eggy fricassee, with a gratiné béchamel top. It tasted wonderfully rich, but it hadn’t coagulated properly, so I was left with a residue of eggy soup.

I’m not sure if this is really an improvement.

Jeremy had calves’ sweetbreads with onion marmalade, which were good, the onions particularly smooth and sweet. Michael had the terrine of rabbit loin with hazelnuts, which he said was fine, except that it wasn’t what he’d expected from rillettes. That’ll be because it’s a terrine, then. I’ve never seen the maestro at work before. He uses a dictaphone like Norman Wisdom pretending to be a spy. “Beef’s much better than it was on Sunday,” he bellows, as if recording on a wax disc for Thomas Edison.

He and Jeremy shared a chateaubriand, which was the star of the lunch. Ideal Aberdeen Angus, carved at the table; soft, velvety texture with just enough tooth, and a truffle gravy. Too many things came with the addition of truffles, and often with ghastly truffle oil, which should preferably only be used when there’s an x in the month. My grilled turbot, boned and skinned beside me, was a credit to flat bottom-feeders (not flat-bottom feeders) everywhere.

The cheese trolley took an age to arrive. Winner spotted it hiding behind a pillar. “There’s the cheese trolley,” he yelled. “Here boy, come here.” But it didn’t want to. A covey of waiters hovered around it, whispering encouragement, giving it little shoves. “He’s not as fierce as he looks,” they said. “He won’t eat you. Well, not all of you.” The cheese was B-plus, and this is one room where it should be exemplary. The old Savoy would never have sent out the skunky bit of cheddar we were offered.

Puddings also get a trolley. They were light on stodge, and needed something that would mug your liver on the way through. An apple strudel thing was just this side of the staff canteen, but a fruit salad was nice enough.

Over all, the food is much improved, although it’s still not quite all there. Personally, I’d simplify it a bit, trust the ingredients — which were, for the most part, impeccable — and leave the bloody truffles out of the mash. The service is intensive care, but friendly and not overpowering.

I left with a huge sigh of relief. This is still one of the best teams in Britain, even when faced with a Yiddish terminator, and the customers seem unchanged. You wouldn’t want to go on holiday with any of them: it was wall-to-wall worsted, and the new lights sparkled off 100 well-fed bald patches.

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