My editor, the ghostly Jeeves who has been fluffing my semantic cushions, buffing my syntax and wafting away my adjectival flatulence for more years than is probably wise or sane, has mentioned that he thinks I’m getting soft. He has noticed the toothpick of mercy and the Rennie of forgiveness creeping into my copy. Naturally, I think I am still the Gog and Magog of top table, the Struwwelpeter of à la carte.

Looking at the distribution of merit from the past year, however, I can see the evidence writ in the stars. We awarded 10 four stars, 11 threes, six twos and four ones, and two places were committed to the outer darkness with no stars at all. (By the way, those of you who come up and tell me how much you adore the little jokes on the star ratings — I don’t write them.) On a plate, that would all seem a touch more generous than last year. There were no five stars, though, and I may just have sugared a couple of reviews overenthusiastically. But essentially, it’s there.

The year’s high points, gastronomically, were Arbutus, in Frith Street, Soho, which has some fancy cooking and an inventive menu and might have got a fifth star if it had looked a little nicer and hadn’t been full of people from the media; and L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon, on West Street. Robuchon may well be the best chef cooking anywhere in the world at the moment, but this cousin of his Parisian gaff seems to have made an awkward transition to London. Some of the food is as wonderful as you’ll find in the capital. And then there was Bar Shu, which all the critics were mad for, but I doubt if any have been back. The Sichuan food was so hot, it could boil bog water.

Two of the worst places were the joyously Scotteesh Dorchester Grill Room — which told me that, after my McMordant review, it had never been busier, and could it send me a hamper? — and the Bell at Sapperton, in Gloucestershire, which encapsulated everything that makes the countryside what it is, from risqué cartoons in the gents to a faux sophistication on the menu that was completely untroubled by competence or taste.

In retrospect, it hasn’t been a brilliant year for innovative gastronomy, or even uninnovative gastronomy. There wasn’t much epicurean exuberance or bonhomous hospitality. After 14 years of eating out six nights a week, I still get a frisson every time I open a menu — and there is a secret pleasure in finding something really awful, like the mutton at Launceston Place. But I don’t have enough dinners left to me to search out bad kitchens on purpose.

Britain’s — by which I mean London’s — foodie renaissance has grown into a flashy adolescence. We can’t keep on saying how much better it is than it once was and patting ourselves on the back for distance run. Most new restaurants are glossy temples of style over substance. A really sickening amount of money is spent on design and ignorantly little effort put into menus and kitchens. What’s on offer is a fashionably repetitive shortlist of high-value ingredients with low-skill construction. Most cooks in London don’t actually know how to cook very well.

Then there are the prices — very, very few restaurants are even on nodding terms with value. This is, by a large margin, the most expensive city to eat in in Europe, with the least reason. The best dinner I had all year by 897 miles was in Rome. It was a fraction of the price it would have cost in London and it was in a city where restaurants are part of the civic environment. They look like they belong with the houses and the shops and the churches and the people in them. They’re not absurd, overdressed stage sets of pose and cool, or jabberwocky food brothels feeding calorie warriors and chicken social workers.

The prices and pretensions of London restaurants mean that a whole swathe of the city’s inhabitants and visitors never eat out — or eat out only in cafes and chains. The smart dining rooms are full of the sort of people who would turn a bookmaker Bolshevik. Again, in Rome, you’ll sit next to a film star, a postman, a politician and a pair of snogging students. Restaurants are for everyone, and everyone knows about food.

The worst thing about Britain is that so many people are disenfranchised by price and snobbery. And most embarrassing and shaming is that the people who work in restaurants could never afford to eat in them. This isn’t good for the equilibrium and cohesion of society, nor is it morally pleasant to sit down with.

This year, I went on a lot about the unfairness of the service charge, which restaurants use to make up wages when customers are led to believe they’re offering a tip. This is not illegal, because our greedy chancellor allows it all to be taxed as pay.

I got a lot of patronising and supercilious mail from people purporting to be head waiters and restaurateurs, telling me not to be naive, that this was a way of saving Vat. There were even other restaurant critics who couldn’t see the problem.

Well, let me say it again: quite simply, it’s wrong — morally and humanely. You should pay, in a restaurant, the same way you pay for any other product or service. A tip is a tip, between you and the staff. That’s not A-level ethics and comparative philosophy. Even the French can manage it. This is the last time I’ll mention it, for a bit. Don’t pay the service charge. Leave cash.

Next year (gout, ulcers and arteries willing), I’m going to get tougher. No more Mr Nice Creosote. I’m going to pay more attention to cost and value and less to the colour of the walls. I’m also going to use the Rome scale for how well restaurants cater to their neighbourhoods and the people in them.

Here, to finish, is a shortlist of things that the secret cabal of restaurant critics has decided it has had quite enough of this year.

1 Waiters who say: “Have you eaten with us before?”, then explain a concept.

2 All concepts that aren’t “I order, you bring, I eat, you clear away”.

3 Meaningless and unattributable declarations of organic, chemical- and pesticide-free, line-caught, fair-trade, pixie-picked and any other feelgood, right-on appellation that adds an extra 10 quid to the bill.

4 All variations of chocolate fondant pudding.

5 Nobu blackened cod that isn’t from Nobu.

6 Thai crab cakes, even if they are from Thailand.

7 Cheese plates with four smears and three grapes.

8 A vegetable choice that is spinach, Kenya beans, spinach, broccoli, spinach, cabbage, spinach, carrots or spinach.

9 Spinach — Notting Hill Spam.

10 Truffle oil on anything except a bike chain.

11 Bread baskets that don’t have any bread that’s made out of just bread.

12 Maître d’s who wish you bon appétit, cheers, ciao or enjoy!

Anyway, Ciao.

Arbutus, W1
L’Atelier de Joël
Robuchon, WC2
Bacchus, N1
Bar Shu, W1
Canteen, E1
Ciappelli’s, Isle of Man
La Noisette, SW1
Tendido Cero, SW5
The Wallace Collection, W1
The Wolseley (for breakfast), W1

11 Abingdon Road, W8
Cecconi’s, W1
Galvin at Windows, W1
Gilgamesh, NW1
High Road Brasserie, W4
Mews of Mayfair, W1
National Dining Rooms, WC2
Papillon, SW3
Saki, EC1
Thomas Cubitt, SW1
Veeraswamy, W1

The Ambassador, EC1
Amici, SW17
Barnes Gril,l SW13
The Grill, Brown’s Hotel, W1
Kilo, W1
Pasha, SW7

Bumpkin, W11
The Dorchester Grill Room, W1
Launceston Place, W8
Sumosan, W1

No stars

The Bell at Sapperton, Gloucestershire
Hosteria Del Pesce, SW6

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