You’ll never guess who I had in the front of my cab. The Archbishop of Canterbury, that’s who. Now I know what you’re thinking: “Oh yeah, so likely. I bet he only looked like the Archbishop of Canterbury.” Well, of course he only looked like the Archbishop of Canterbury. Who else is the Archbishop of Canterbury going to look like?

Now you’re thinking: “Oh yeah, and how did he get his pointy hat into the cab, not to mention the curly stick and the bent choir?” He was dressed like a regular cabbie, actually. If an archbish wants to mill about among his flock, naturally he’s going to go incognito. I didn’t want to blow his cover, so I just said: “Will you take me across the river?” He gave me an intense once-over in the rear-view and replied, with a spiritual mellifluousness: “Of course, my son.”

The real clue to his ecclesiastical alter ego was the photo on the dashboard. You know the kiddie snaps that cabbies always have: hideous little gappy-grinning, nit-shaved Asbo brats? They’re a recognisable type, cabbie kids. I reckon all those years of doing the Knowledge on mopeds must curdle their dads’ testicles. But the archbishop, he had Jesus in his school uniform, framed in maroon cardboard, and a little St Christopher medallion hanging from the Biro-holder with the 53 rubber bands.

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Like you, I was thinking: why would the Archbishop of Canterbury moonlight as a cabbie? But just imagine having to listen to the problems of thousands — no, millions — of people, day in, day out. All that smiling and nodding, giving it the divine two fingers, muttering blessings to endless orange-squash-and-ethnic-biscuits get-togethers for visiting evangelical Venture Scouts and the retiring bishop of Tuvalu. And having to go to church over and over and over again: a month of Sundays every week, delivering the same “We’re not angry, just disappointed” sermon. And listening to a steel band called Hot Gospel doing a syncopated version of Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam. And spending every night saying grace for the Confederation of British Fat Cats, or the Worshipful Company of Ostlers and Ferreters. And constantly having to hoick up your skirts to have a pee.

Well, you’d need somewhere to go and unwind, somewhere to get stuff off your chest, empty out the ashtray of your conscience. And what’s the opposite of being the Archbishop of Canterbury? Being a London cabbie. It’s a bit like a mobile confessional, where the punter has to listen. So I let him rattle on about Jade Goody and Ken Livingstone and gays and the silly money ruining football, the commute up from Kent, bleedin’ cyclists, the diet of Whitby and the Albigensian heresy. He had a lot on his mind. I reckon at any one time, between Christmas and Easter, 15%-20% of cabs are being driven as spiritual therapy by the leaders of world religions.

He dropped us at the InterContinental. I told him to keep the change and he said “Bless you, guv”, with a bit of a sly wink. I felt a warm frisson, a bit of a glow. He handed me a receipt. And here’s the clincher — he’d signed it with a cross.

Nobody you know, nobody who knows anyone you know, has ever stayed at the InterContinental Hotel on Park Lane. As I walked in, I realised that, after five decades in London, this was the first time I’d ever set foot in the place. I must take a really good look, I thought, so I can remember it for later. But the lobby has been painted, carpeted and furnished with some clever magical stuff that slips off your retina — the same material they make stealth bombers out of, and dress Lib Dem MPs in. I have absolutely no memory of it at all.

The restaurant is called Theo Randall, and is turned out in that international school of non-design reserved for hotels around the world where nobody you know ever stays. It’s so perfectly bland and devoid of personality, it could be a late-night DJ on Classic FM. A lot of people have told me to come here, because the kitchen has been taken over by someone — coincidentally called Theo Randall — who recently worked at the River Café, where he was beloved. Naming restaurants after yourself is good and bad. It’s good because it impresses your father-in-law. It’s bad if you ever want to sell it. Unless it’s to another man called Theo Randall who is, coincidentally, a chef and doesn’t already have a restaurant named after him.

The menu is made out of the same ingredients as the lobby, but with an Italian accent. It is a list of dishes that would strain Derren Brown’s recall. I have it in front of me, and I notice that the starters are long on anchovies, three out of seven offering them. Not everybody appreciates an anchovy. Luckily, the Blonde and I scarf them like hungry puffins.

She started with puntarelle alla romana, which came with chilli, anchovy and herb vinegar. I don’t know what had happened to the herbs. Possibly, the most powerful wine vinegar known to southern Europe had dissolved them. It may also have eaten the pattern from the plate. It certainly made the shy and delicate puntarelle impossible to taste, or eat with anything but a medicinal grimace. At £8, it was the cheapest starter, along with my taglierini with red mullet and tomato. This can be wonderful. Giorgio Locatelli used to do it. Taglierini is very fine pasta and needs only the faintest, gentlest bath. Mine had been boiled into a congealing mophead of sog with a mush of moggy fish. It looked as if all the ingredients had been fed through an office shredder with half a pint of water and kept under a hot lamp since lunchtime.

Next, I had a lemon sole with capers, lentils and swiss chard. The fish was greasy and undercooked at the bone; the chard was lukecold. The lentils were okay. It was a miserable way to spend £18. The Blonde had turbot with artichokes, capers (again) and potatoes. No better value at £26. Pannacotta — like a breast implant — with forced rhubarb was rubbery and tart, respectively.

Only two other tables were occupied in the large room. The atmosphere was provided by new-age health-club music. I asked for the voluntary service charge to be taken off the bill (the service was charming, if rather overattentive, which I put down to loneliness). The receipt came back saying I had paid the service charge. Apparently, it was impossible to print it any other way.

Everything I’ve heard about Theo Randall is good. Everything I ate was disappointing. That is the curse of big, bland hotel dining rooms. Chefs should be wary of the ethos of clean, neat mediocrity.

We took a minicab home, driven, as it happens, by the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. He had no idea. “Predestination?” I said. “You’d be better off with satnav.”

Theo Randall

InterContinental Hotel; 1 Hamilton Place, Park Lane, W1; 020 7318 8747

Lunch, Mon-Fri and Sun, noon-3pm.

Dinner, Mon-Sat, 6.30pm-11pm

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