Jay Rayner, who is me over at The Observer (although nicer, fairer, buttered with the back fat of righteousness, studded with cloves of kindness and stuffed with the sweetmeat of liberalism), has sent a round ortolan of an e-mail, soused in the vinegar of ire, to us restaurant critics, pointing out that a certain Michelle Lovric is producing a book of liverish quotes eviscerated from the paunch of bitchy food reviews, called How a Stupid Dull Person Can Make a Few Quid out of the Wit and Wisdom of Smart People, or something. Jay is quoted nine times; Matthew Norman, five; Will Self, who hasn’t written a review in five years, is stung for 13; Giles Coren for 12; and I’m mugged for a corpulent 21. As Jay points out, that means I’ve written a not-inconsiderable portion of the book.

Yet more annoying things are presented on the canapé tray of irritation. First, Coren has half the number of quotes, but they’re twice as funny as mine. And, more important, I mind that I’ve been fleeced and purloined for another of the depressingly cynical, coy, mindless collections of lists and gift bits that sandbag the counters of bookshops. Ms Lovric has a website. Oh, the self-regard of the internet home page. Oh, the fathomless, vicious joy. I’m thinking of compiling a short volume of best/worst/vainest home pages. Surprise, surprise, Lovric flaunts a blue-stocking face, a face that could do with a blue stocking, a face that is made for books without jackets. She anoints herself “author, journalist, and anthologist”; my, what a lot of effort has gone into being Michelle Lovric, and to what negligible, nugatory, tiptoeingly anonymous end.

In a self-proclaiming interview, she says she’s “at ease in the 18th century, where feminine values were prized”, and that she loves the London Library. “I usually have half a dozen deadlines, but sometimes I allow myself the promiscuous sin of 10 minutes’ browsing,” she says. “I like to be at my desk by 6.30, as if I can startle an idea by creeping up on it so early.” See how easy it is? You hate her already. Her second novel, The Floating Book, has gleaned an Amazon review that starts: “The steaming pile of promiscuously browsed, screechingly startled, constipated marzipan dung ...” Or, at least, it will at any moment. Her third novel, The Remedy, was, she winsomely boasts, “longlisted for the Orange prize”. If I tucked Mr Tinky Winky between my bum cheeks and spoke in a high-pitched voice, I could get longlisted for the Orange prize.

She has written — sorry, other people have written — dozens of anthologies. She maintains “a large database of texts on memories, love, poems, letters, female and male wit, slang, cursing, archaic words, and esoteric medical matters”. And there’s more: she has done cat collections. It’s worse than you could ever imagine. The dinner-party neighbour from smug, lavender-hued Tooting purgatory is married to a “leading” British architect, Graham Morrison. Sweetie, he’s not really an architect — he’s digging an escape tunnel. As Tufty said to the naughty magpie: “Oi, beak off my nuts, bitch.”

Scott’s, the fish restaurant in Mayfair, is one of a handful of British gastronomic institutions, a classic. And, like most British classics, for far too long it has been smelly, sticky, stuck-up, grudging, rude, dried-up and tasteless. Over the years, it has been bought by a number of hopeful consortia, all of which have failed to do much more than highlight its classic decrepitude. One lot spent a fortune paying the waiters to go away. They all looked like Max Wall and had fish-flavoured thumbs. But then they didn’t have enough money to employ any new ones.

Finally, as Starbucks loomed, it was taken over by the Ivy group, which has spent a great deal of time, effort and, I expect, money on ironing out the classic architectural catastrophe left by half a dozen cheap refits. Mark Hix, chef director of the Caprice, Sheekey’s and the Ivy, has overseen the kitchen, and few dining rooms have been so eagerly awaited.

The first thing is, they’ve made it look very, very good. The new room has dark wood walls, a great oyster bar designed by Future Systems, specially commissioned contemporary art from Hoxton, Sean, the famous doorman, in a bowler hat, and carpet. Carpet soaks up the noise, and you can talk happily. I’m nominating carpet as this year’s top ingredient for restaurants. Overall, the room feels like a contemporary remix, a cover version, an anthology of the Ivy. The menu is part Ivy and part Sheekey’s. Upper-middle-class, lightly travelled, nicely spoken fish. Twenty years ago, every fish restaurant in London was a poissonnerie pastiche of Nice. Now, you’d have trouble finding a tranche of lotte with a burnt beurre blanc. It’s all back to the Edwardians, with oysters and fish pie. Mind you, I had to send back my first lot of oysters. They were stiff with the taste of metallic iodine and could have been used as a poultice for choir boys’ knees. But I have on other visits had some excellent cod’s roe on toast, and equally good herring milt (more bisexual underwater foreplay than you probably want to think about). And some unusual cod’s tongues, not to be confused with the skate knobs at Sheekey’s (cheats). I’ve had the stargazey pie, a semi-mythical Cornish dish, with herrings’ heads staring out of the pie crust. We owe its rediscovery to the beatified Jane Grigson, as we do the Sussex pond pudding on the dessert menu, an impressive dome of suety pastry for two, containing liquid toffee and a whole stewed lemon, served with cream. It’s like finding Elgar snogging Falstaff in a peat bog.

Scott’s has had a long and fraught gestation. Not everything is right yet. My replacement oysters weren’t a patch on Bentley’s, and if you go to all the trouble of whacking in a great marble bar and naming it Oyster, you really ought to have an oyster worth eating. And the hollandaise and bearnaise, those unctuous sycophants of English fish, were too greasily thick, like buttery pus.

There is also that other classic English accompaniment: the neighbour from cantankerous, mean-spirited, vengeful righteousness. The unneighbourliness of resident Londoners is a growing problem for the hospitable city. Pubs, bars, cafes and restaurants are all getting their licences challenged, or revoked, by collectives of householders who reckon it would add a couple of grand to their properties, and want the fun and games to go on in someone else’s parish. Licensing authorities need to be reminded that London doesn’t just belong to those who own a front door, and that every street is not an autonomous republic. Scott’s, and its history, and the pleasure of its future, belongs to thousands of people who don’t vote or live here or pay council tax, but who add hugely to the city. They are what make cities proper places, not just enlarged versions of Stowe or Godalming. Scott’s has a very good and personable team running it. It also has an enormous amount of goodwill. It’s serving the right sort of food in the right sort of place, although, I think, rather expensively. Mount Street boasts the George, the Connaught and Harry’s Bar, round the corner. It’s one of my favourite streets anywhere, so I’m doubly pleased the old classic has come good.

Scott's

20 Mount Street, W1; 020 7495 7309
Mon-Sat, noon-3pm, 5.30pm-11pm; Sun, noon-3.30pm, 5.30pm-10.30pm

Five stars: Cod almighty
Four stars: Good cod
Three stars: Cod of small things
Two stars: The cod delusion
One star: Codpiece

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