So, it's off to Locanda Locatelli for an all-expenses-paid meal for two. Oh yes, my journalistic boat seems to have finally come in. But who to take?

The logical answer is my Australian friend Pete, since he's over from Hong Kong and is staying the week with me. On the other hand, when I tell him, Lady Bountiful-style, that I've only gone and swagged us a table at the best Italian restaurant in London, I can't help feeling that he's being really rather insufficiently grateful.

'Is it far?' he asks.

Worse, he was a foreign correspondent in Rome for two years, during which time he wrote a couple of stories about the Pope but largely dedicated himself to the task of putting on three stone in weight. Consequently and quite boringly, he now thinks he knows all there is to know about Italian food.

I make this point, because, being a) male, b) Australian, c) a non-UK resident, and d) laconic to the point of bone idle, I wouldn't necessarily have voted him my Friend Most Likely to Have a Fit of the Vapours upon Sighting a Celebrity. Which just goes to show, because not half an hour later he's giggling like a girlie and is too nervous to go to the gents.

But first things first, which in my case is a fresh and creamy goats'-cheese salad with balsamic onions and beetroot and Pete's is ox tongue with salsa verde. Max the sommelier swings by, with his recommendation of an aperitif of marsala, a bread basket with a dozen types of different, delicately flavoured bread and the greenest, fruitiest olive oil I've ever tasted. Pete is slightly sniffy about his ox tongue ('I think I had better back in '99 in Murazzano') but I ignore him and scan the room and there just visible under the mood lighting is Chris Evans.

Oh, this is just typical. One of the best things about the authentically Turkish place just around the corner from my flat and my favourite restaurant in London is that you're never likely to bump into Chris Evans in there. It's one of the reasons why I don't actually like posh restaurants all that much. There's really nothing like a faintly annoying minor celebrity to put you off your food.

And then, just as I'm crabbing about this, in walks Gwyneth Paltrow. Not in some anti-paparazzi I'm-just-a-normal-London-girl type outfit either. She's done up like a Christmas bauble. Her blouse is gold and silky, and her hair so long and shimmery and perfectly coiffed it flows like a river down her back. She's just so golden and shiny that suddenly the backdrop of curvy cream banquettes and large convex mirrors looks impossibly glamorous. And, bizarrely, since there's no way you could have ever predicted this, so do we. We're having dinner with Gwynnie. Pete is holding up quite well at this point. He's looking unimpressed. He's not staring. And then I say, 'Who's the bloke with her?'

'It's a woman, isn't it?' he says.

We both peer at him/her and then both gasp. Although for slightly different reasons.

'Omigod!' says Pete, his fork arrested, on the way to his mouth. 'It's only Sir Paul McCartney!'

It is. With hair that is not only unnaturally full, it's also orange. Pete is so excited he momentarily loses the power of speech. He's a bonafide Beatles bore. I lived with him, years ago, in Prague and the repeated replaying of 'Rocky Raccoon' had a not insignificant part in the demise of our relationship.

Max brings another glass of something zingy and delicious and then our pasta course arrives and a plate of gnocchi with truffle that is truly sensational and that even Pete agrees is beyond compare but it's hard to concentrate because in walks Stella McCartney. She's in one of her sweater dresses which I know are high high fashion but it doesn't stop her looking a bit like Dorien from Birds of a Feather. And there's Chris Martin with his head-boy smile on. And who's the older-looking rock chick with the smudged kohl eyeliner and the birds'-nest hair? Why, it's Chrissie Hynde, of course.

'It's like watching glove puppets,' says Pete. 'You think, bring on Chrissie Hynde! And then in she capers.'

We're actually craning by this point. It's an A-list celebrity meltdown. And yet Chris Evans, on the table right next to them, doesn't so much as turn his head.

'He must have balls of steel!' says Pete. 'You'd have had to have fought in the Battle of Britain or something to be able not to stare.' He continues not-staring as a waiter appears with a little cake and a candle and the whole table starts singing, 'Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Chrissie, Happy Birthday to you!'

It's a bit like being in the front row at your own personal Live Aid. Even our waitress can't help sneaking a peek.

'I'm sorry,' she says. 'There is one man there whom I love.'

'Which one?' we say.

'Bono.'

'BONO!' we shriek. We hadn't even noticed him. He was camouflaged against the celebrity canopy but there he is! Sitting next to Sir Paul. He hasn't got his sunglasses on, a brilliant reverse-disguise technique that totally out-foxed us.

'I've got to go to the loo,' says Pete but at the same moment Sir Paul stands up and heads to the gents.

'I CAN'T GO NOW!' he says. He stands up and then sits down again and then stands up again.

'So?' I ask, when he returns.

'It was completely deserted,' he says. 'Apart from one locked cubicle. From which emanated total silence.'

It's all too much. Much too much. More food arrives, lamb for me, veal for Pete. It's perfect. Perfectly cooked, perfectly served. Our waitress, a pocket-sized version of Sophia Loren, is adorable. Max appears every half hour or so with a glass of some wine that is even more delicious than the last. We've adopted a strategy of saying yes to everything.

Chrissie, unless I'm very much mistaken, is making panda eyes at Sir Paul. Or maybe that's just her eyeliner. Although my theory is that Stella is trying to set her dad up with someone his own age. Because, otherwise, it's just weird, isn't it? That they're all best friends with each other.

And then, suddenly, they've gone. Poof! Like fairy smoke. Bono, out the front door, the rest of them via various secret exits round the back. Poor Giorgio. He begs me to not say who was there. But I'd have had to have been in the Battle of Britain or something not to mention it. His food was quite quite lovely though. As were his staff. And we head out into the night, humming 'Strawberry Fields Forever' all the way home.