Marcus Wareing’s original Pétrus restaurant at 33 St James’s was the first restaurant I reviewed in a national publication. Marcus had come up the road from L’Oranger, a few doors down, and taken the place over in partnership with Gordon Ramsay, who had himself just left Aubergine to set up on his own on the site of the old Tante Claire in Royal Hospital Road. The scale of Ramsay’s ambition at that time seemed staggering. Imagine: two restaurants!

I was the newly appointed restaurant critic of Tatler, and I went to Pétrus in the company of the outgoing critic, Rory Ross, for a bit of instruction in the ways of this new life upon which I was embarking.

“This is a fork,” Rory would say, holding up a strange, pricky-looking thing. “You use it for spearing food and bringing it to your mouth. And this is an amuse bouche, also called an amuse gueule. It’s free food. And this 400-page book is a list of fermented grape juices you cannot afford. And you see this lovely little thing here? This is a PR girl. You can kiss her if you like.”

For my lunch, I had sautéed calf’s sweetbreads which, according to my research (yes, I used to research things then, and make notes and everything), had been Mr Wareing’s speciality at L’Oranger. I’d never had sweetbreads before. I was astounded by their nuttiness and sweetness and smoothness. And by the dark, sticky goo that was under them on the plate. A “reduced” veal stock, Rory told me. Or just, a “reduction”. My mind boggled at the new terminology I was expected to master.

Overall, I was dazzled. The room, the food, the hush, the funny big paintings which, Rory told me, were still here from the previous restaurant on this site, a place called “33” which had been opened by a Masterchef winner and had failed utterly.

I felt terribly sad. I had no idea restaurants could “fail”.

And then out came a nice young man in a stripy apron to say hello to Rory. He was, at 27, a year younger than me and about the same height, with twinkly blue eyes, and strong, very hairy arms. He shook my hand with the iron grip of a small bear who used to box a bit.

I went back and wrote that Marcus Wareing was the best chef in London. I said that if he was not already a better chef than Ramsay, he soon would be. I had never, of course, eaten a mouthful of Ramsay’s food. Or anyone else’s, really.

Six months later, interviewing for the job of restaurant critic for The Independent on Sunday, I went back to Pétrus, and when Marcus came out of the kitchen and said, “Hello, Giles”, right there in front of the editor I was trying to impress, I threw my arms around him and hugged him tight.

I felt I had a bit of possession of Marcus. When he opened the Savoy Grill for the burgeoning Ramsay group, I saw it as my duty to be in there first, declaring its arrival to the nation. And the same when Pétrus moved to the Berkeley.

But I wasn’t crazy about the new Pétrus. It was too ornate for me, too flashy, and I feared that maybe Marcus’s cooking had become over-elaborate in the quest for the second Michelin star he then famously craved (and got) – but what did I know?

Not wanting to say anything negative about Marcus’s restaurant (like when your girlfriend gets her hair done a new way and you know it’s not your job to say you liked it better before), I rather fudged the issue, writing round it, claiming that I was too miserable in my personal life (which was true at that time) to write properly about food.

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