In the depths of lockdown, the arrival of a takeaway can feel like a promising message from a lost world; one where restaurants continue to do what they always did. It’s a sudden spike on the emotional heart monitor. A few weeks ago, I said I wouldn’t talk about such things in this column and I never go back on my word. Except when I do. So many intriguing takeaways have arrived at my house recently that to not mention some of them would be a dereliction of my ludicrous duty.

Mostly they have been taken in a professional capacity. Oh, that we should all have such professions. Just before restaurants closed, I was recording a third series of my podcast Out to Lunch, in which I grill marvellous people to a turn over a marvellous meal: Dita Von Teese at Norma, Charlie Brooker at Chutney Mary and so on. But we have all had to adapt. So now I stay in for lunch and interview marvellous people by video, with a takeaway.

We started outrageously. I was able to send both myself and Edgar Wright, director of Shaun of the Dead and Baby Driver, a Chinese. Except it was a gilded, Michelin-starred Chinese from Hakkasan Mayfair, which delivers across the centre of London. By gilded I mean literally so. Gold leaf may have been involved. The pert lobster dim sum, as full and rounded as an Instagrammer’s lips, came topped with caviar. You may now wish me to check my damn privilege. Well I just have. It turns out I have loads. So that’s nice.

There was prawn toast, the plump, sesame-crusted minced seafood a fabulously wealthy but distant relative of the dour high-street version. There was finely sliced rib-eye steak with lily bulb with punchy black beans, and a raucous dish of king prawns in a thick, spicy coconut sauce. It all survived the journey unharmed, mostly because it came via Supper, a new high-end, app-based delivery service using bikes with temperature-controlled compartments that has partnered with some of London’s fancier restaurants. Basically, my takeaway arrived by limo. Accordingly, it is not cheap. Main courses start in the high teens, but don’t loiter there for long. (For £120 you can get a two-person menu, with all proceeds going to Great Ormond Street Hospital.) As ever, it’s worth it, but only if you can afford it.

Hush now. Here’s something much cheaper. The charming singer-songwriter George Ezra got a bike’s worth of top dishes from the glorious Middle Eastern supermarket Green Valley in Kensington: it featured tabbouleh, pumpkin kibbeh and falafel popcorn, which are two words that had long been waiting for each other. To match him I stumbled upon the delightful Limett Bistro in West Dulwich. They were due to open on 1 April. That obviously couldn’t happen so they moved straight to delivery. Romanian-born George Moldoveanu’s Mediterranean-inspired cooking is vivid, thrilling and a cheery exercise in value.

All starters are around £6.50. There is chargrilled pumpkin, spiced with the whipcrack of zatar, alongside crumbly feta and a herb salsa. Humble carrots are roasted with the punch of harissa to give them a leg up, and served with a citrus-boosted hummus, while spiced lamb meatballs arrive with a field-fresh cucumber salad and flatbread. The star is grilled chicken thighs marinated in yogurt, lemon and garlic alongside a mixed pepper stew and a fattoush salad, for £9.

There have been others worthy of note: the Vietnamese restaurant Banh Banh, in Peckham, sent me a sweet-sour shredded papaya salad tossed with king prawns, crushed peanuts and crispy shallots, which made me feel like I was being healthy, plus chicken wings glazed in sticky fish sauce and chilli, which made me feel messy. I have also become mildly addicted to the fried chicken from Bird in Brixton, with its undulating crusty skin, full of golden nooks and crannies and spiced echoing crunch. It’s what KFC would be, if it had a career mentor and ambition. That, I ate on my own time.

But undoubtedly the most engaging adventure was the readymeal kits dispatched to me by podcast guest Tom Kerridge, full of his familiar bravado and enthusiasm. I couldn’t see the point in sending him a takeaway, when he was supplying his own from his pub, the Butcher’s Tap in Marlow (alongside cooking hundreds of meals a week for the vulnerable). My starter of Isle of Wight tomato and feta salad with garlic pesto, priced at £5.50, had 11 potted elements. I had a jolly time, layering sliced tomatoes, then dressing them with a sticky tomato reduction, a wild garlic pesto, a crispy shallot crumb and many other things besides. Instructions were clear and the heaped, Technicolor result felt like the moment you finish running a bubble bath and it’s just waiting for you, the steam rising.

The £9 main course was long-braised ox cheeks in a bordelaise sauce packed full of lardons, red wine and so much gelatine that when it first came out of the box to be heated in the oven, it was solid and rubbery. I didn’t know whether to eat it or play squash with it. There was mustard mash, asparagus and a box of finely ground crispy beef fat. I finished with a remarkably light sticky toffee pudding. No, I wasn’t spared the washing up, but it still felt like someone else had done the important work.

A word on packaging. I’ve long fretted over the piles of plastic boxes that each takeaway moment can generate. They might carry a recyclable mark, but who knows whether that means anything? Those who have been involved in producing meals for vulnerable groups from home during this crisis, will now have found them damn useful. A black mark goes, then, to the restaurant local to me which dispatches its food in plastic pots closed up with a heat-sealed film instead of lids, meaning they are useless when emptied. Top marks, however, go to both Bird and Limett Bistro for using a paper-based packaging. And that, I can promise, is the last time I will mention takeaways in this column. Unless, of course, I change my mind.

Hakkasan is available via hakkasan.com, Deliveroo and supper.london. Limett Bistro is available via limettbistro.com. Green Valley, Banh Banh and Bird are on Deliveroo. Tom Kerridge’s meals are available to collect from the Butcher’s Tap, Marlow, with limited local delivery (thebutcherstap.co.uk). Series three of Out to Lunch is available now, wherever you get your podcasts

News bites

Let’s have a round-up of a few interesting delivery and takeaway options from around the country. French restaurant La Garrigue in Edinburgh is offering both home picnics and three-course meals. Dishes might include gutsy stuff like snail and duck gizzard pie, alongside cassoulet or chicken with a fennel and lemon sauce, followed by a blueberry clafoutis at £23.50 a head (lagarrigueathome.co.uk). Meanwhile, the team behind both Artusi in Peckham and Deptford’s Marcella have various pastas – bucatini, cavatelli – alongside a variety of sauces from puttanesca to a sausage and saffron ragu, for around £12, while £28 could get you a mushroom and artichoke lasagne for three or four (artusi.co.uk).

In Newcastle, the Grainger Market traders, with support from the city council and a throng of volunteers, has put together a delivery service. It includes a variety of market boxes – fruit and veg, bread, cheeses – as well as selections from the various fishmongers, butchers and delis trading from the site. On 30 May they’re inviting customers to join them from home for a “bloody big afternoon tea” in support of Blood Cancer UK (shop.graingerdelivery.com).

At the other end of the country the lovely Jeremy’s restaurant at Borde Hill, Haywards Heath in West Sussex has teamed up with the onsite café to provide an extensive takeaway menu of dishes that are both ready to eat and to be finished at home. It includes everything from a three-course menu for £35 a head, through a Sunday roast, to scotch eggs and cheese plates (jeremysrestaurant.co.uk).

Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @jayrayner1