The queue is so long you can’t see the front. The place is packed. Everyone looks very determined and very cool as they push to the front, waving wads of money. No, it’s not the launch of Kate Moss at TopShop. Or Saturday night at the Cuckoo Club. It’s the first day of asparagus season at Borough market.

Food follows fashion and right now our national cuisine is de rigueur : cooking it, eating it, gorging ourselves on foodie books and shows. We just can’t get enough. Why is Brit-Food so hot? And how can you get your share?

“We now know more, and care more, about food,” says Fergus Henderson, cook-proprietor at St John in Clerkenwell. Henderson is the pioneer of nose-to-tail eating—nothing is wasted in his award-winning restaurant. Spleens, livers, stomachs—all sensationally delicious, not sensationalist. He was also one of the first British chefs to look closer to home for ingredients and inspiration. “When we opened, 13 years ago, there weren’t really any British restaurants as such. There were quality suppliers, though fewer and not always easy to find.”

That was then, this is now. “London is a city brimful of culinary possibilities,” says Sir Terence Conran in Eat London, his new book co-written with Peter Preston. “St John is one of the finest restaurants in one of the tastiest cities on earth. The food is beyond reproach.” Stars that have sparkled at St John include Kevin Spacey, Jamie Oliver and Nicole Fahri. It might as well have a red carpet. Nearby is another Brit-Food legend: The Eagle, the original gastropub.

“London is now a global dining destination,” says Tom Norrington-Davies, the food writer and cook who helped the Eagle fly. “We’re experiencing a surge of pride after being a joke for so long.”

His latest venture is the newly opened 32 Great Queen Street restaurant in Covent Garden. “It’s a British Brasserie,” he says, pots rattling in the background. Brasserie sounds suspiciously French. “Brit-Food is an invention, just like Britishness. We’re a trading nation. We’re not like the French or Spanish—we’re magpies. We stole custard from France and curry from India. Now they’re British.”

We adopt and adapt. Brit-Food is more than bangers and mash. However, we all love a limited edition hand-made organic artisanal rare-breed sausage.

“French-trained British chefs are using local ingredients in a very simple way that let them speak for themselves,” says Matt Tebbutt who co-presents Market Kitchen with Tana Ramsay on UKTV Food. “We aren't afraid to look at our traditional dishes and give them a fresh and exciting twist using local ingredients. British food has never been trendier.” Or tastier.

Over in Shoreditch is the steakhouse-to-end-them-all: Hawksmoor. The rib-eye steak here is 600g of fibrous, bloody joy. "We get all our meat from the Ginger Pig," says Nick Strangeway, General Manager of Hawksmoor. "Their beef joints hang for 28 days creating exceptional marbling and flavour.” Named for the reddy-brown coats of Tamworth pigs, the Ginger Pig is the foodie’s butcher. If anyone could convince Stella McCartney to take up flesh, they could.

Seasonal, local and organic—that’s our new mantra. Food miles are the new calories—to be counted and kept as low as possible. No more South-American strawberries in spring. “We’re buying from the farm gate as much as we can,” says Norrington-Davies. “On Monday morning I took delivery of two sheep, half a cow, a pig and some ducks. We’re working our way through it starting with the offal. It’s not a gimmick—it’s respectful to the animal and it tastes better. And it helps me decide what to cook that day.”

London has Borough but every town worth its name has a Farmer’s Market. The epicurean epicentre must be Taste of London festival. At this four day event in Regent’s Park you can meet the chefs and taste their offerings. The Savoy will serve up beef and ale stew, Canteen are spit-roasting Gloucestershire Old Spots and Gary Rhodes will be whipping up some white tomato sauce. Bath, Birmingham and Edinburgh will host similar gastro-orgies.

Our most celebrated chefs are now celebrities: Gordon Ramsay, Heston Blumenthal and Tom Aikens. But what happens when we get bored of them? Could Brit-Food go the same way as Brit-Pop and Cool Britannia? Will it be back to fish fingers on toast?

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