Anyway, I can’t think of a religion that doesn’t use food as part of its ritual. For Christians, there is obviously the Host (or mein Host, as it’s known in German churches): the bread and wine. But there are also pancakes and Easter eggs, simnel cakes and hot cross buns, thousands of European Catholic sweetmeats and tarts (both risen and fallen), and enough marzipan saints to make you sick. Hindus have lentils and chapatis. Judaism has its bitter herbs and Passover lamb. And in Guatemala, I once saw animist offerings of rum and fags.

I have a theory — no more than a guess — that religion and the preparation of food arrived together and grew, temporally and spiritually, hand in hand. Cooking is a profound transformation. It’s only a spiritual hop and skip to burning heretics at the stake. And the food that was probably at the heart of nascent religions was your neighbour’s heart, liver and thumb muscle (apparently a particularly moreish delicacy). Men with beards posit that the original reason for Leviticus prohibiting pork was that pig and human are indistinguishable when thoroughly barbecued.

In many religions, there is also the absence or denial of food. Fasting has generally dropped off the Christian calendar. There were once two fast days a week, as well as numerous saints’ fast days and Lent, which, when there was less to eat, was far more rigorous than just giving up drink or chocolate or Indian takeaways.

Medieval monks were canny at getting round the “fish on Friday” thing. They made conies (rabbits) into honorary fish, because they lived in holes, like puffins. And puffins were obviously fish. Look, if angels can dance on the heads of pins, then puffins can be fish, okay?

The most dramatic religious fast is Ramadan, which sounds like a Bill Haley chorus. I took the kids to Oman, not for Ramadan, exactly, but during Ramadan. It’s a tricky time to travel in an observant country. All the restaurants are closed. You can’t eat in the street. Tourist hotels have secret locked-and-darkened midday dining rooms. I had to tell the children not to drink in public, while at the same time making sure they drank enough.

I asked my guide, who was fasting, what the point of Ramadan was. I thought it would be the same self-mortification as Christian fasting: to rarefy the ethereal reverie. “Up to a point,” he replied politely. “Actually, it’s self-restraint. It toughens us up. The Koran says we need to be strong to withstand hardship.” I had forgotten what an earthy and practical religion Islam is. Not drinking from sunrise to sunset when the temperature is in the 40s is properly tough.

We were invited to break fast with a family of Bedouin. In that rather overpolite, respectful, smiley way that white westerners have when taking part in other people’s rituals, I hissed at the children to behave and only eat with their right hands. “We know,” they sighed. “We’ve done religion and other cultures and bum-wiping.”

The first thing that is eaten is dates. I watched an old man stone his with a magician’s sleight of hand. The elegance and delicacy of eating with your hands from a communal plate is beautiful, respectful and amazingly neat, if it’s done by neat, respectful and beautiful people. I was left cross-legged in a midden of dripped and spilt food. We drank orange juice and laban, a thin yoghurt. Despite the hunger and thirst, nobody grabbed or rushed or stuffed or chugged or gulped. It was a thoughtful, timely and surprisingly frugal meal. I envied them the appetite that comes with forbearance and faith. I even considered joining in Ramadan for a weekend, but you can’t be a tourist in other people’s souls.

We finished with a farinaceous soup that was thick and warm and blandly delicious. “What is this?” I asked. “It reminds me of something.” A child was dispatched to the kitchen tent to get the recipe, and came back with a tin of Scott’s porridge oats. As the huge and miraculous Arabian night sky rolled out over the cooling desert, not for the first time, I was reminded that we are all connected by more than divides us.

Luciano is a new Italian on the site in St James’s Street that was once Suntory, an expense-account sushi, and, long before that, the mythical Madame Prunier’s, one of the handful of prewar London restaurants. Now it’s in the hands of Marco Pierre White, who has made it into a bar with a restaurant in the back room. It has the characteristic look that we’ve come to associate with Marco’s restaurants: utilitarian opulence with a touch of design megalomania. There are some nice paintings in the dining room, which I remember from the old Oak Room.

The menu is tourist-board Italian: that is, a compilation of easy-eating Latin favourites without a particular regional purpose. It’s like a CD of sing-in-the-bath arias. Which is all fine: one of Marco’s particular talents is constructing menus that people actually want to eat. Nothing here comes as a surprise, but it’s all comforting and friendly. Prosciutto, carpaccio, risotto alla milanese, monkfish with clams, liver alla veneziana with polenta, bistecca fiorentina, tiramisu and ice cream — all at a reasonably medium price, considering the area: £6 or £7 for starters, and about £15 for mains. Everything is made with competence rather than flair. The room is slightly more glamorous than the food, and for the money, with adequate service, it should please the locals.

If I sound guarded, it’s because, though I appreciate the pizzas and the pubs and the mid-market wholesomeness that is now what Marco does, I miss him as a chef. He is still the best cook London has had in my lifetime. And while I can well understand why any chef would want to get out of the kitchen and sit soft, every new Marco restaurant still reminds me of what’s not on the menu.

Luciano

72-73 St James’s Street, SW1; 020 7491 0356

Mon-Sat: lunch, noon-2.30pm; dinner, 6pm-11pm

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