Wilton Place, SW1; 020 7235 1200. Book a table

Lunch, Mon-Fri, noon-2.30pm; dinner, Mon-Sat, 6pm-11pm

5 stars: Beyond compare , 4 stars: Trope for the best, 3 stars: Mixed metaphor, 2 stars: Bitter irony, 1 star: like whatever

Bored with bankers now — can we talk about something else?

Just before we do, though, a couple of things. For the sake of argument, if you hadn’t seen a paper, or a television, or t’internet, or listened to a radio, or a taxi driver, for the past two months, how would you know that the world as we understand it is poised on the lip of an abyss that will fling us back to the fiduciary age of Asterix? What is there in your daily life, in the lives of your friends and neighbours, in the tea leaves, that would lead you to believe that this is the severest capitalist crisis since the 1920s, including the time you nearly choked on the top hat from the Monopoly board? Then again, having read all the papers, seen the television, listened to the radio and the relentless cab drivers, how do you know that the billions of pounds, those love beads of noughts that the prime minister has pulled out of our fiscal fundament, have made it all better now?

The point is, surely, that the world runs on mutually held delusions — as long as we all believe the same story, then everything will be all right — and that confidence born of ignorance is a better foundation for an economy than doubt begat by knowledge.

So, actually, the less you know, the better off you’re likely to be. Economists and chancellors all explain that what markets need is confidence — and we all know that confidence is a trick. So, really, what they need is not more statements from wonks and nerds and fat prats in pinstripes, but Paul McKenna. He sorted out my smoking, I don’t see why he shouldn’t do the world economy.

I’m being serious: Paul should go on worldwide TV, and those screens they have in stock exchanges and dealing rooms, smile that weird, spooky smile of his and say: “Okay. Just relax. Get comfortable. Breathe in, and out. Close your eyes. Your hands are feeling heavy. Your legs are heavy. Your moobs are heavy. You’re warm and secure. In and out. Think of something comforting. . . think of a billion pounds. There you are on a beach, water lapping, sun shining, breeze blowing, seagulls twittering, your medallions hot on your massive chest. . . and the billion is lying there provocatively on the lounger next to you, and it whispers, ‘Spend me. Waste me. Lend me. Flash me. Cash me. Go on the lash with me. Oil me. Grease me. Flaunt and taunt and flog your wad with me. . .’ Okay, you’re coming back to us now. When I say ‘One, two, three”, you’ll wake up feeling like Gordon Gekko. You are a golden bull, untouchable, immortal, ravenous for things, for stuff, for goods and services, for flying, floating and frotting things. Wake up, my son, and suckle bow-cheeked on the tit of Mammon.” And they’ll all come round howling with fecund philanthropy and spend like mullered matelots. Job done.

What this crisis has really been about is not cash flow or credit. It’s nothing to do with liquidity — what it’s really been all about is words. It’s the drying-up of mouths, the logorrhoea jam, the stammer and mutter of politicians who are incapable of making a confident sentence. Nobody has been able to speak to inspire. They all retreat to quavering caveating and timid obfuscation. Politicians talk with the empty grandiloquence of butlers and the bogus jargon of technicians. They steal meaningless, empty constructions from each other’s mouths like excited myna birds. They have lost the oratory and we have lost the ability to believe or trust them — and, worse, to be inspired or moved by them.

The skill to declaim and convince was once a fundamental political tool; now, not one of them could sell a Big Issue. When was the last time any of us heard a great political speech? You’d need to be over 40 for it to have been in your lifetime. The death of political oratory and the authority of language is a more serious threat to the state of free nations than the price of gold.

Marcus Wareing at the Berkeley is a patrician’s dining room, a hushed, heavy, ponderous place where the light is eked out like the housemaster’s sherry, the waiters walk on eggshells and talk in thick, frothy accents, the customers are groups of wet-lipped and dry-eyed men, bottom-sniffing. It has the meaty atmosphere of an expensive food brothel, catering to the sated. Wareing is a man I’ve always considered as being among the best cooks in the country. His previous restaurant on St James’s served food of a swaggering brilliance, then he came to this hotel under the auspices of Gordon Ramsay. Now they’ve fallen out — there’s a surprise. After a lot of childish and mean-spirited behaviour (it never ceases to surprise just how inhospitable chefs can be to each other), Wareing has got the kitchen and the glory to himself (though not the name — Pétrus, as it was previously called, has reverted to Ramsay’s ownership). He’s had a brace of Michelin stars for some time, but now he burns to gain the third — you can feel the pressure, the will, the commitment in every dish. See it in the eyes of the girls on the door and the nervous hands of the maître d’. I suspect he wants it to draw level and away from his erstwhile boss, to assuage a hundred stinging slights.

Wareing is a charming, wiry young man with an intense, thousand-cover stare, and he’s on a mission — which is not the most conducive place to find the easy bonhomie and generous comfort of a welcoming restaurant. The Blonde and I took Giles Coren, Esther Walker and the painter Jonny Yeo. Giles tried to explain the difference between a simile and a metaphor to me with all the pained condescension of an Oxford man (he’s had a few): “I have a penis like a cobbler’s thumb is a simile. My willy is a dog whistle is a metaphor.”

“Actually they are both illusions, and boasts,” Esther said. I think she’s a bit polytech.

The menu starts at £90 for the endless tasters and £75 for the à la carte. It’s a bit of a performance. Vitello tonnato — finely sliced poached veal, air-dried tuna, smoked anchovy, capers, white onion and nutmeg mousse — was a cacophony of stuff, none of which came together to make vitello tonnato. Pan-fried foie gras with glazed black figs, lapsang tea and hazelnuts was too little of too much. Main courses of Cumbrian rosé veal, which, despite what Giles thinks, isn’t veal but underage beef, and consequently lacks the defining character of either, came with Dorset snails — why do snails need a county? — sea purslane, sweet garlic emulsion and Alsace bacon. Salt-marsh lamb doesn’t get out of the kitchen without shallots, fennel, confit tomatoes, saffron and lavender.

There’s no denying that when this all leaves the kitchen, it’s clever, accomplished, exemplary cooking, but by the time it gets to the table, it’s an effortful, unrewarding plate of pelmanism. Ingredients might just be a smear or a dusting — it could be a splat or a lump or a miniature cairn. It’s constructed like a herbaceous border and difficult to eat. You get all the clever little ingredients one at a time, rather than complementary combinations. The best of pudding was a peanut parfait with Valrhona chocolate mousse, salt-caramel jelly and raspberry cream.

Dinner was less engaging than I expected it to be, and very expensive — you probably need to visit Paul McKenna to afford this. Will someone please give Wareing his third Michelin star, so he can relax and wear his immense talent with a little less rigour and a little more panache? If it’s any help, I’ve always thought he’s a much better chef than Gordon.

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