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5 stars: Icing on the cake, 4 stars: Chef’s special, 3 stars: Neither fish nor fowl, 2 stars: Flat as a pancake, 1 star: Burnt to a crisp

Of course, it’s all about the brand these days. As long as you’ve got a brand, you’ve got a sell, and if you’ve got a sell, there’s no end to your riches — homeware, fashion, food, hotels, booze, jewels, music, panto, books . . . the world, as they say, is your commercial oyster. Everyone from the Tate to Topshop, the Beckhams to Boujis, knows this, which is why Jamie Oliver has launched his own magazine, Peaches Geldof hers, Gwyneth Paltrow is giving away her style and chanting tips on a blog and why Coleen Rooney — professional Wag and handbag carrier — is, along with Wayne, in possession of a £35m fortune. (Her status as wife nets her more than £40,000 a month from OK! magazine alone. The mind boggles.)

So, what do you do if you’re a brand every single person in the country can namecheck, one that anyone who was alive in the 1980s can recount a story about, but that nobody visits any more? You reinvent yourself, of course. Little Chef, scourge of the greasy fry-up (not in a good way) and grubby roadside caff par excellence, is taking itself in hand. Not for them the Woolworths road of crash-and-burn. It has employed the services of Heston Blumenthal, a man famous for his snail porridge and bacon-and-egg ice cream, to take it into the 21st century.

Now, this is not such a strange association as it sounds. Heston might be king of dry ice and molecular gastronomy, but he is also champion of brilliantly executed kitchen classics. He wrote a hugely popular column for this magazine for a long time, about how to pull off everything from cheese on toast to spaghetti Heston (the best carbonara I have ever made), and his TV programmes have focused on kitchen favourites such as burgers, steak, and fish and chips. Add to that his passion for the kitsch 1970s clichés — black forest gateau, iceberg lettuce, prawn cocktail — and suddenly the association does not seem so dramatic. Particularly when you remember Heston likes to say he was named after a service station off the M4.

The association kicked off a few weeks ago with the opening of the first Hestonised Little Chef. Later this month, Channel 4 will screen a programme, Big Chef, Little Chef, tracing Heston’s involvement with the brand. A big press launch in November made the news in most dailies, and now we’re all — or soon to be all — talking about a chain of caffs we had long since consigned to the dustbin of pre-gastro-boom Britain. Because, of course, Little Chef belongs to those dark days when we didn’t know what polenta was, when everything came with chips and when we never asked where our ingredients came from — the freezer, no? A Little Chef experience happened because in-car DVDs were the stuff of fantasy, and with kids stuck in the back of the motor on the long trip down to Cornwall, when the journey would take a day in itself, the fighting and the “Are we nearly there yet?”s would become unbearable and mum and dad would need a fag break and a calming cup of tea. Little Chef was yellow, Formica, abrupt; the food greasy, uncomfortable, careless. But we all went there. These days, of course, it’s feet up on the dashboard with a takeaway packet of mini cocktail sausages from the M&S Simply Food pit stops, while the kids sit entranced by Finding Nemo and the parents count the minutes to landing time. The journey is simply a means to an end.

Heston’s Little Chef — and if this one is a success, the formula will be rolled out across the country — wants to change this. To put the joy back into the journey, make the break not some descent into the third circle of Welcome Break hell, but a pleasure in itself. You’ll find it at Popham Services, the first one you come to on the A303 as you dive off the M3. Very clever. This is the gateway for townies making the break for the country, the Friday-night route of countless second-homers and away-break regulars, the clientele used to scallops and bruschetta in their local, who think nothing of eating out twice a week and who know all about the breeding habits of an Aberdeen Angus beef herd.

Outside, the little red-and-white chef logo has been subtly reworked, but this is the only clue. It’s still a dull brick building by the side of the road. Inside, it’s different. It’s still red and white, there’s still a lot of Formica and tiling, it’s still the Little Chef — but it’s better; much, much better. There’s a kitsch retro sweet counter facing you as you come in; there are blue ceiling tiles with fluffy white clouds and seagulls on them; the red bar stools and booth seating have 1950s-American-diner overtones; and the kitchen is open, diner-style. The wall tiles are studded with cute quotes about food — how to tell if an egg is fresh — and the staff wear shiny new uniforms with food quotes from AA Milne, Sophia Loren and Bernard Shaw emblazoned on the back. In the loos, the busy noise of kitchen chatter is pumped through the sound system, which might occasionally break into a Spike Milligan ditty about chewing gum. There’s a wit to it, an edge, a cleanness and modernity, that moves everything on while still staying very close to the brand. Ab Rogers, son of Richard, is the man behind the interior’s transformation, and he’s probably feeling very pleased with himself right now. And the staff are still the type of staff you would expect from a roadside caff — spotty youths and wizened old ladies — but this time they are smiley, happy, helpful, and they know and care about the food you’re ordering.

The kids love it. There are little-people-sized stools and tables, sweet competitions and, lining the walls, endless games of Buckaroo!, Operation, Downfall and Battleships. We were a party of seven, with three under three. We stayed three hours and had to drag the kids away. I know. We couldn’t believe it, either.

So, the food — because that is where it’s going to stand or fall. It’s excellent, really excellent. Almost destinational in itself. You’ll recognise the menu: there are still the truckers’ favourites, the Olympic breakfast and the scampi and chips, the prawn cocktail and cherry pancakes. There’s steak and strawberry sundae and all the ones you remember and expect. But the chicken-and-mushroom pie is now Hereford steak and Abbot Ale pie, there are braised ox cheeks cooked in red wine for three days, mussels in cream and white wine, a specials blackboard with lamb shank and mash advertised, and the sourcing is better — the sausages contain less fat and salt and 50% more meat, and the bacon is locally cured.

We pigged out, I’m afraid. Favourites were the scampi (crunchy and delicious), the prawn cocktail (light and perfectly judged) and the mussels (as good as any you will find in France). The meat — both the ox cheeks and the lamb — was beautifully flavoured and melted off the bone. Minor gripes were the mash, which tasted a bit odd, and the steak, which was a touch overdone.

It is the puddings that will have the kids clamouring for release from the back seat, however. The sundae is reinvented with pumpkin seeds and freeze-dried strawberry chips, the cherry pancakes come with a delicious version of Mr Whippy’s soft ice cream, there’s a clever black forest gateau mousse, and there’s popping candy on the trifle. Best of all, though, is the Häagen-Dazs chocolate fondue, which does what Heston is best at — putting the entertainment and drama into the meal. Sixteen little balls of ice cream are dipped on fondue forks into a chocolate sauce, with toppings of biscuit, choc flakes and popping candy, and the table is drowned in shrieks of delight. And if that’s not enough, you walk out with a free little packet of jelly beans to ease the transition back into the car.

The meal was so good, it’s going to be really hard to go past Popham now without stopping. It’s the perfect example of how and why a brand should reinvent itself — by staying true to its roots, reviving all your nostalgia and making it relevant and up to date again. Very happy motoring; very happy eating.

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