Smash hit

“In grammes?”

“Grammes is fine.”

“Am have no idea.”

I grew bored of the conversation. For £320 I expect, if not a song and dance (though it would be nice), then at least a smattering of information about what I’m going to get.

But I ordered it anyway. We got a dessert spoonful. It was in a small bowl sitting on a larger bowl with not enough ice in it. So it wasn’t cold. I asked for a bucket of ice and showed the waitress how, if you put enough ice in the larger bowl so that it actually makes contact with the bottom of the smaller bowl, the desired cooling effect can be better achieved.

She thanked me for showing her and said she was still learning. I asked if I would get a small discount from my £320 in respect of this handy lesson.

“Am not think is possible,” she said.

Tallulah didn’t say “a-woo-gah” when she tasted the beluga. Which is a shame when you’ve spent £320. So I tasted it. It wasn’t very nice. Tangy. Oh well. Maybe it’s meant to be. And hurrah for it! (I briefly forgot I am supposed to be loving this place.) A small amount of a not very nice thing whose harvest is ethically scandalous served in tiny quantities at three times the price of my first car is exactly what London needs just now.

The pancakes were huge, thin, flappy cold things, as close to eating out of a used hanky as I have got since I lost interest in my own snot.

As well as the caviar and lard we had seven quid’s worth of marinated herring stacked up with some pickled stuff and cut into a cylinder then sprinkled with chopped egg. It represented, I thought, stonking value. Compared to the £320 spoonful of fish eggs and the £4 kilo of bacon rind.

I didn’t have the rabbit stew because the rabbit wasn’t wild. So I said I’d have the chicken Kiev. I hated to send the waitress back to ask if the bird was free-range, because by this time I thought it was unlikely even to be a chicken. Whatever it was, it had been filled with a thumbful of marge, squashed and coated in a floury crust that came off in one. No garlic. No salt. Boy, Kiev must have changed since my day.

On the plus side, I began to see why so many Russians (Ukrainians, whatever) are beginning to yearn for the old Communist days: a three-month queue for the roadkill pasty and I might have appreciated it.

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