This is one of those rare places which I feature in a review without having been the instigator of the visit. I went because two very old pals of mine were off there for a mid-week lunch and thought I might be interested in joining them.

“It’s a new Mexican place in Covent Garden, opened by a former winner of Masterchef, which is being rolled out as a nationwide chain,” they said, expecting me to leap at the invitation.

Mexican. Masterchef. Nationwide chain rollout. Covent Garden. Why, what’s not to like? Apart from… everything! Surely the four worst things in the world: Mexican food, Masterchef, chains, Covent Garden. In my personal all-time pantheon of world baddies they take the first four places at a stroll, easily slapping the bubonic plague, Frank Lampard, cluster bombs and long crotched skinny drainpipe jeans into fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth, respectively.

But the thing is, these two pals of mine know a thing or two not just about food, but about opening restaurants, and about rolling them out. Dominic Lake, my old bartending pal from the Hampstead Dome (class of ’91), is now developing the third outlet of his massively successful Canteen chain, holder of the Observer Food Monthly restaurant of the year, and the paradigm for all accessible, sustainable modern British restaurants. And Henry Dimbleby, who used to bully my sister at Oxford, heads up Leon, the free-range, nutritionally savvy fast-food joint that is so virtuous, so heroic, that it might have been conceived in response to Dale Arden’s frantic plea: “Flash! Flash! I love you! But we only have 14 hours to save the Earth!”

Wahaca: a taste of the new Mexican wave

Holy guacamole! How do you bring the healthy flavours of a Mexican market to a London restaurant? Thomasina Miers reveals her sauces

BACKGROUND

• AA Gill reviews Wahaca

• Just wild about food

• It’s time to turn up the heat

So, I said OK, I’d go. On the morning of the day, I looked it up on the internet to help get the juices flowing (like the great modern sportsmen, I always prepare for my event with visualisation exercises to mitigate the stress and expectation of the real thing), but found that it did not exist.

“Are you spelling it right?” said Henry, when I phoned him.

“I spell everything right,” I said. And paused, grandly, for effect. “I haven’t been to Mexico, but I have read both Under the Volcano and Lowry’s rather meandering sequel, Dark As The Grave Wherein My Friend Is Laid, and you’ll find that…”

“Yes, well they’re spelling it Wahaca, not Oaxaca,” said Henry. “They thought it was too difficult to say.”

“Bit defeatist,” I said.

“I think it’s sound business,” said Henry. “It’s all about word of mouth in this game. If people can’t say it they won’t bother to talk about it.”

“Rasoi Vineet Bhatia is doing OK,” I said. “And nobody has ever spelt that the same way twice. Nor has anybody ever had a clue how to say Busaba Eathai. What next? Elena’s Letwarl? Kwagleenoes? Rarseen? Le Gavrosh?”

“Yes, yes, must dash,” said Henry, and hung up.

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