Free Pizza

I checked beneath my chair for shark tanks. I sat down. The chairwoman leant forward. I half-expected a globe to rise up in the middle of the table and her to explain how, by targeting these six major cities with neutron bombs, we could make the world bow to our demands (no more foams, no more spun sugar, the abolition of compulsory service charges…).

But she didn’t, and everything thereafter is confidential. So confidential that every time a waiter came in with food, or water, or to plump up our napkins or just generally flatter us, we fell silent, and turned over our judging sheets.

First up, we got a clever little canapé blobby thing with something inside, I forget what, which came on a silver leaf to be gulped down like an oyster. And then some delicious cheesy cracker things which elicited from me the timeless response: “Nom, nom, nom.”

“Oh no!” said the restaurant critic on my right. “Don’t say that.”

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The side dish of heritage carrots were a bit scary: all multicoloured and leaves-on and covered in grit

Giles Coren

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“What?” I said.

“Nom, nom, nom,” she said. “I hate nom, nom, nom!”

That’s what it’s like eating with a restaurant critic: you get your opinions about the food criticised even as you utter them.

The starter was a wood pigeon and foie gras terrine: robust, red breast meat leaved with foie gras, and brightly coloured sweet dribbles around the plate. Perfectly done, but the sort of thing I don’t eat any more unless it comes unbidden. I will not create a market for foie gras, but I won’t throw it in the bin either.

Then, let me see: line-caught sea bass. This was very clever. An elegant skinless fillet with a small rectangle of the super-crisped skin positioned top left of the fillet like a postage stamp. There was a pouch of shimmering emerald cabbage leaves containing mushrooms, and a shellfish sauce. Not bad, for fish.

And then there was Aubrac veal fillet. This was quite an exciting one: a chunk of roasted rose veal on a large plate with a quenelle of really rugged, husky sweetcorn purée, very seasonal and very right. Very yellow. As yellow as the cabbage was green. He’s good with colours, is this fellow. And then there were three little puffs of sweet popcorn.

The restaurant critic on my right said, “Och, popcorn’s so fashionable just noo.”

The restaurant critic at the head of the table, a little later, and affecting not to have heard, said, “Oh, popcorn’s so very 2008.”

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