In my aimless and haphazard perambulation of the globe in search of rustic gustatory interest and peristalsis-teasing bonnes bouches, there has been one steaming grail, one red-starred, exclamatory, top-of-the-list dish that I have spent years fruitlessly chasing: Felis catus. I’ve always wanted someone to cook me a cat – not as a joke or a dare, or because of imminent starvation, but as part of a natural balanced diet and because they thought it tasted good.

Cats are consumed only as a final, desperate hors d’oeuvre before cannibalism. Along with rats, they are the indicators of extreme hunger. Descriptions of sieges always mention cat-eating. Rabbits were traditionally sold with their furry feet left on, so that your grandma wouldn’t be unscrupulously palmed off with a headless ginger tom. When they’re skinned and gutted, you have to count the ribs to be sure that bunny isn’t Tiddles.

It’s about here that you might imagine a detour into some risqué, winking badinage involving the colloquial pet name for cats. But, as the paper is going through one of its periodic moral spring cleans to disinfect the loucher sections of sniggerly smut – or, as the decency editor never tires of wearily telling me, “Gill, your double entendres only mean one thing” – there will be no prurient pussy parlance going down here.

Last week, I came this close to eating at the furry bowl, but it was dashed away before I could get stuck in. I have at last found a nation that eats cats for pleasure. Stand up, Ghana, and take a miaow. Innocently, a chap I was travelling with in the bush mentioned that he had to get home. “We’re having cat tonight,” he said. “Mmm-mmm.” Cat? Real cat? Moulty, lap-needling, stink-spraying, baby-scratching pretty kitty? “The same,” he said. Is this just you and your wife, or do others eat it, I inquired, trying to keep the excitement out of my voice. “Oh, everyone eats cats – they’re delicious, a great delicacy. We have restaurants that serve cats.” Do you keep them as pets as well? “Yes, of course. We love cats. The children play with them, then we eat them.”

And how do you prepare them? “Have you ever tried to kill a cat?” Sadly, not yet. “It’s very difficult. You can’t just strangle them or cut their throats. They’re all claws and teeth. They hide under the sofa. You can never say you’re going to eat a cat out loud.” Because the cat might run off? “Exactly. And when he goes, he takes the soul of one of your family with him.” Well, I never. “So we put him in a sack and drown him, or bash him against the wall. Then we burn off all his fur with a blowtorch.” You don’t skin them? “No, no, no. The skin is the best bit.”

Silly me. Of course – kitty crackling. Can I have some? “No.” Oh, please. “No, I’m not taking you out to eat cat. It’s not the sort of image we want to project abroad.” But I’m a food critic: I’m allowed to eat everything, I whined. “No,” he said firmly. “You can eat grass-cutter instead.” What is grass-cutter, I asked sulkily. “It’s a big rat.” Really? A really big rat?

Grass-cutter isn’t actually a big rat, although in the West Indies they call it a cane rat. It’s a sort of coypuish cove and is technically bushmeat. You can see their little corpses stacked up in the market. They are smoked and look like ancient roadkill. They also keep their skins. Grass-cutter soup with a cassava dumpling was interesting, dark and deceptive. Actually, it was repellent. It tasted like boiled cigars and a meaty kipper. The cassava dumpling was like finding congealed wallpaper paste at the bottom of the bowl.

I’m pleased I tried it; I’m pleased I never have to again. Mostly, though, I’m pleased they eat it. Diversity is everything – and I’m still desperate to try a cat. If there are any Ghanaians here who would like to invite me, I’ll bring my own cat. Not mine, exactly – there’s one next door.

Just in case any of you are moved to tell me that I’m unfairly traducing a fine nation by stressing the cat-eating, let me say that I loved Ghana. It’s a brilliant, exciting and inspiring place. Food mockery is the oldest racism and xenophobia, and I will have none of it. I make no moral or social judgments of other people’s dinners, and I’m grateful to share with them. If you think it’s derogatory to talk about eating cats, then, sadly, that’s your cultural bigotry.

Where do you think a restaurant called Haiku comes from? I doubt that Cape Town was in your first 20 answers. Apparently, though, this is an offshoot of one of the trendiest restaurants in South Africa, which has opened a branch just off Savile Row, in the West End. It’s a sliver of a dining room in an awkwardly misplaced space attached to the front of an anonymous office block in a cul-de-sac. So anonymous that the Blonde furiously called me from outside saying there was no restaurant there. Inside, they’ve covered everything with foreign wood, so it’s a bit like eating in a flayed jungle.

The menu is everything I hate and despise about modern pick’n’mix international food: a South African restaurant with a bogus Japanese name that offers sushi, dim sum, tempura, tandoori, wok dishes, Korean, Indian, Thai curries, Malay and Singaporean noodles. There are more than 150 dishes on the menu, not including dessert. It’s an Asian variety that doesn’t offer choice so much as claustrophobia. This is jabberwocky food: rootless, borderless, motherless, in-the-style-of food. And the service is Polish.

We began with mixed sushi, then had tandoori lamb chops, sizzling pepper beef and Singapore noodles. Every dish was made with singular skill, dexterity, care and élan. I can’t tell you how annoying and delicious that was. The sushi had precisely the right proportion of cleanly cut fish to perfectly textured rice. The tandoori chop was unctuous and assertive. The noodles were fresh and homogeneous without tasting brown. The beef sizzled and was undeniably blackly peppered. For pudding, we shared a cardamom and saffron kulfi, which was emetically coloured and confidently flavoured.

It’s not cheap. If, as they suggest, each diner has three or four dishes and shares, you’re probably looking at £30-£40 a head for what would be street food in the cat’s cradle of streets this menu has ransacked. What can I say about Haiku? I hated everything about it, except the food, service and dining room, all of which were infuriatingly good.

HAIKU

15 New Burlington Place, W1; 020 7494 4777

Mon-Sat: lunch, noon-3pm; dinner, 6pm-10.30pm

Ratings: 5/5 The cat's whiskers; 4/5 Cool for cats; 3/5 What's new pussycat; 2/5 Cat-o'-nine tails; 1/5 What the cat dragged in

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