Lunch with Michael Winner is always fun, but never relaxing - he gets upset so easily. One minute he's sitting there beaming, telling anecdotes and hooting his great Hahahaha laugh, the next, he's grieving and keening over some perceived catastrophe - a dirty wineglass, an absent fork, an inattentive waiter. I remember a few years ago he took me to what was then his favourite restaurant, Assaggi, and he was in his happiest, most bonhomous mood, saying the reason he liked Assaggi was because it was very exclusive and you got a nice class of customer - and then his eyes fell on a young woman breast-feeding her baby! My dears, I have never actually seen anyone turn purple before. It was such an enthralling sight that I hastened to prolong it by saying, 'Oh I totally agree. I love restaurants that encourage children!' He must have forgotten that remark or he wouldn't be having lunch with me now.

This time there were some terribly long-drawn-out negotiations beforehand about where we could eat. I said the Wolseley, the hot new restaurant started by Jeremy King and Chris Corbin, ex Ivy and Caprice, but Winner said Ooh no, he couldn't risk taking me there - I might write something rude and then he'd be banned and that would be tragic. I said I wouldn't dream of writing anything rude - 'I have to eat too!' - but he was adamant.

He said we could go to the Dorchester Grill - 'Beautiful room and not many people know it.' That's just the trouble, I told him - nobody knows it so nobody cares. But, I said, as a compromise, we could go to the Caprice. This was not entirely disingenuous because I knew that he'd recently had a great row with the Caprice - they said they couldn't guarantee his favourite table so he cancelled the booking and complained vociferously in the Sunday Times. But actually, he's made his peace with the Caprice since then, so he agreed we could go there. But then, mysteriously (did they refuse him his fave table again?), he rang and said he'd booked the Wolseley after all.

One o'clock Thursday, he said, and then added rather plaintively, 'You will be on time, won't you, dear? I don't want to sit there like a lemon.' Oh poor man, I thought, I'll go early to save him. So I got to the Wolseley at ten to one and blow me, he was already installed at a central table, with Jeremy King, the tall elegant co-owner, hovering beside him. I went over and kissed Winner and then Jeremy kissed me with a fervour I thought smacked slightly of desperation. Do I detect a hint of an Atmosphere? I wondered, but I didn't have to wonder long because Winner, who is not one for keeping secrets, immediately confessed: 'It was so embarrassing Lynn - thank God you weren't here. I just asked Jeremy to switch our table with the one next to it, because I thought the one next to it was bigger. And as the waiters passed the two tables in front of me, like two ships passing in the Channel, I saw they were identical in size! Hahahaha!'

But gosh, I thought, this is a whole new development - I know Winner cares insanely about which table he sits at, I didn't know he worried about table size as well. Oh yes, he says, these at the Wolseley are rather small, smaller than at the Ivy, but adequate, he reckons. But he didn't like to think anyone else's table might be bigger. So this is the best table? I ask, looking round. 'Of course,' he beams, explaining that, for a start it's a corner table which means we can sit at right angles rather than facing each other, 'and you don't want to look at me, darling!' and second, it faces the front door so he can see everyone coming in. Thirdly, it's in the centre of the room so everyone can see him - he knows some people prefer a discreet table but 'I've never been discreet dear!'

'I don't go to restaurants, I go to tables' is his watchword, and he has a list by the phone of all his regular restaurants with his favoured table numbers beside them. He says you have to do that. 'I mean at the Tour d'Argent in Paris there is one table, and only one, where you can see right up the Seine to Notre Dame on one side, right up the Seine the other side, and it is one of the great views of the world. There are other tables where you could be in Essex! So don't tell me the table doesn't matter!' So what's the number of this table? 'I don't know,' he says (meaning he doesn't want to tell me), 'but with Jeremy and Chris I think if there's a problem they'd tell me.'

Right, got it, so we are at the best table at the best restaurant in London, and Winner is one happy bunny. Except - what is this? No sooner has Winner finished his explanation, than who should come trip ping through the door, with a tiny blonde on his arm, but Andrew Lloyd Webber. Ooh! Lloyd Webber, it will be remembered, was until recently the restaurant critic for the Daily Telegraph and therefore Winner's closest rival - though as Winner was always the first to admit, 'Andrew knows a great deal about food and I don't! Hahahaha.' But where would Lloyd Webber sit, given that the best table was already taken by us? Winner watched, quivering like a fox on hearing the distant view halloo.

Lloyd Webber was taken to a table - another corner table, one we hadn't noticed before - still in the inner circle but in a more discreet, shadowy area near the bar. 'So is that a good table?' I asked innocently. 'Hm.' Winner was obviously thinking about it, thinking deeply, while also waiting for Lloyd Webber to notice him and nod. Eventually satisfactory nods were exchanged and Winner was able to give me his attention. 'That's a good table too,' he finally pronounced, 'but I prefer this one because, as a film director, I like to see the door.' Phew. Honour satisfied. But it was an anxious moment.

Waiters hover while we read the menu - though Winner says he doesn't need to, he already knows it by heart. He has been to the Wolseley twice a week since it opened and has already established his 'usual' - chopped liver to start and Hungarian goulash to follow. So this is his new favourite restaurant? 'Absolutely. This is unquestionably the best dining experience in London. You know, people might say you can get better food somewhere else, but the overall situation - I mean look at the room! Isn't it a pleasure?' It is indeed - huge but somehow intimate, with a wonderfully opulent, decadent, Edwardian feel. Does he have money in it? No, he says, he wishes he did. When King and Corbin left the Ivy, he told them 'Count me in for a hundred grand any time you want to start up', but they never called him. Anyway, he says, he doesn't normally invest in restaurants - he puts all his 'frivolity' money in theatre - which I suppose is just as well given that he reviews them.

Winner's improbable career as a restaurant reviewer started in 1991 when he had a terrible meal at the Pont de la Tour, and wrote an article about it for the Sunday Times 'to get revenge'. It produced such a huge reader response that Andrew Neil decided to run regular restaurant reviews by celebrities. But he made the mistake of asking actors and 'Of course, actors are never going to say anything bad about anyone - they want to be loved. So Andy [Neil] rang me one day and said "I'm fed up with giving these luvvies £200 to say everything's wonderful - what are you doing?" So I said "Well I'll do it for a couple of weeks". This was about 12 years ago. And I said: "I'm never going to go anywhere just for the sake of it, because the day I have to run my life to suit the Sunday Times , it's over." They don't pay anything anyway.'

Don't they? I squeaked. I'd heard he was paid £2 a word. So then it was his turn to squeak, 'Two pounds a word! Oh a lot more than that, darling!' But, unlike all other restaurant reviewers, he pays for his own meals and doesn't claim any expenses - 'and believe me I've asked!' - so he reckons he breaks even at best. 'But it doesn't matter because it's fun. If it wasn't fun, I wouldn't do it.' And also, he believes, he is performing a public service. Stop sniggering at the back: Michael Winner regards himself as the champion of the common man. I know, I know, it's a bit hard to imagine, given that he arrives at restaurants by chauffeur-driven Rolls (or private plane if abroad), demands the best table, and expects all the waiters to genuflect on his arrival.

Nevertheless, he thinks he's standing up for Joe Schmo. And in a way - admittedly a rather far-fetched, contorted, defying-all-logic way - he is. Because until he started writing for the Sunday Times, he suffered from Restaurant Fear just like everyone else. 'You know Lynn - I'd spent at least 50 years of my life being frightened of restaurant staff. If they gave me the book to sign, I'd write: "Wonderful meal, thank you"; if they came over and said "How was it?"' I'd say, "Very nice thank you" - and it had all been terrible. Why did I spend 50 years being frightened of restaurant employees? How pathetic can you be? So now, if I have a bad meal, I don't make a scene, I just say very quietly "Read about it".'

But he is unusual among restaurant reviewers in that he doesn't really give a toss about the food: he cares more about the room, the clientele, the service. 'Oh much more, no question. I mean if you want good food you go to Gordon Ramsay's restaurant when he's cooking and you will have the finest food you can ever eat. But the room is oppressive, it's no fun. I mean this room is fun .'

He is currently on good terms with Gordon Ramsay - 'though we have little tiffettes all the time' (and probably will again when Ramsay reads this) - but he has fallen out with his former favourite Marco Pierre White because Marco didn't invite him to the opening of Drones Club, 'so I decline to go to Drones and I hear he's slagging me off all over the place. Which is silly because he never sees my films so why should I go to Drones? But I'm very fond of him really.' Meanwhile Gordon and Marco have also fallen out badly, Winner doesn't know why. 'Quite honestly, dear, the idea of celebrity chefs is ridiculous. In my day, they stayed in the kitchen and cooked. Nobody saw them, nobody had to listen to them and that was fine. But we're so short of celebrities now, we'll soon have celebrity plumbers! It gives them ideas well above their station. And they're so boring.'

He says if he has any skill in food criticism - 'which I do not' - it's because he's been eating good food for 68 years. 'I think Jewish people always put food above everything - above relationships, above family, above business - though business is a close second. My mother was a very good cook - I remember her meat loaf with an egg going through the middle - absolutely historic!' Was he a greedy boy? 'Oh greedy ! There used to be a place in Marylebone High Street called Maison Sagne that had these incredible cream cakes and I used to go there with my mother and she would invite all her friends to watch me eat. Typical Jewish mother - I would eat 14 cream cakes at one sitting and she would say, "Isn't he wonderful? Look what an appetite he's got!" In the meantime they're killing you! Hahahaha.'

His parents sent him to a progressive vegetarian school where the food was vile and he spent all his pocket money on meat paste, but in the holidays they took him to the best restaurants - Wiltons, Wheeler's, the Savoy, Claridge's. It might have been at this point that he acquired his own restaurant manners. 'My mother was difficult in restaurants. She was very difficult in restaurants, no question. She'd go to somewhere like Wiltons - which was superb - and say "Could I taste the smoked salmon?" So they'd have to bring her a sample first and she'd make a big performance eating it and then say, "No it's salty." They were furious!'

He believes that English food was actu ally better when he was growing up, in the Forties and Fifties, than it is today: 'All this codswallop about how food in England has improved is rubbish. The food in the Fifties and Forties wasn't chemicalised, wasn't deep frozen, wasn't tired, wasn't processed - it was wonderful basic quality food. In those days you got meat and two veg - and a potato, the potato was extra - and it all looked like it should look like, cabbage looked like cabbage, and it tasted superb.' But surely it had thick brown gravy all over it? 'Well I quite like brown gravy! Basically it was bloody good food.'

He is still very conservative in his tastes and believes that 'the last thing to do is trust foodies!' He sticks to the dozen or so restaurants he likes and rarely changes them. His favourite restaurants abroad are La Chaumière in the South of France and Puny in Portofino; he also recommends Tetou in Golfe Juan for the bouillabaisse. He has only added two new restaurants to his London list in the last three years: Racine in Brompton Road, and now the Wolseley, though he welcomes the Almeida in Islington for those rare occasions when he has to venture to the far north. He likes the food at Zuma and Nobu but finds them too noisy. He leaves the task of reviewing new restaurants to his colleague, A.A. Gill, who has the advantage of knowing about food (as well as being Winner's ex-gardener) but their paths rarely cross.

By this time, we have finished our first course and the goulash arrives. Winner, typically, beckons Jeremy King across the room to ask for a spoon, which a waiter is already bringing. 'This is good isn't it?' he says, sloshing it about. 'I wore a black shirt specially for you, Lynn, so you wouldn't notice when I spilt things on it. I always spill things on my shirt,' he says, doing so. There is a plate of white curly things on the side, and I ask Winner what he thinks they are. 'No idea, darling. Do you want me to ask Jeremy?' 'Oh no please!' Winner contents himself with summoning a waitress, who says they are potato noodles. Anyway, they are very good.

It is hard to imagine Michael Winner anywhere except in a restaurant, but actually he says he eats nearly every meal at home. He dines in the kitchen at 6.30 and there is a rota - sausages on Monday, pasta on Tuesday, tongue salad on Wednesday, cooked by his Filipina cook-housekeeper. 'Agencies keep offering me a chef but the last thing I want is a chef - one prima donna in the house is quite enough, thank you!' And he doesn't go to dinner parties because he doesn't like meeting strangers. The only person whose invitations he accepts is Michael Caine because 'Michael is a brilliant cook and serves the best food in the world bar none.' Nor will Winner allow his girlfriends ever to cook because, 'they all say they can cook - every man says he's a good driver, every woman says she's a good cook - but they're never as good as they think they are, and I don't want it to be a source of friction.'

The current reigning girlfriend is Geraldine Lynton-Edwards, whom he describes tactfully as 'a very nice lady, not really a girl - for me, she's very mature'. (Presumably that means in her forties.) She is an ex-actress, now Pilates instructor, who makes him do exercises for 30 minutes every morning and an hour's walk every evening - 'even in the rain! Walking round the streets, up hills and everything.' (Oh those Alpine peaks of Kensington!) 'She is the führer of Pilates. But it's very good, because I wouldn't do it otherwise. I'd just die, darling, I'd die!' Winner had a nasty health scare earlier this year when his nose bled for two days and he ended up in intensive care, but he is in the pink now, in fact looking healthier than I've seen him for years.

In September, he finally publishes the autobiography he has been promising for 15 years. He says he wrote it all himself, without help, so I wondered if it involved any soul-searching. 'Well it's no secret that my relationship with my mother was very difficult [she was a compulsive gambler who spent many years suing him and, he always claims, gave him his first heart attack] and I've written about that very fully. But I've skimmed through life, Lynn! I've skated on the surface, what with the girls and the movies and all the kinds of things that are bachelor heaven. Nothing has been searing, except for my mother.' He says that his friends have told him he should write more about himself, and less about the Hollywood stars he is so besotted with, 'but I was such a fan, I was so interested in the stories of these stars - not just to show off that I know them, of course I know them, I've worked with them for 50 years - that maybe I didn't write enough about myself. But that's directors - we are basically insecure and shy, no question. Don't laugh, Lynn, we are !'

We are only just ordering pudding (lemon meringue for him, fruit cup for me) when Lloyd Webber, who must have eaten very quickly, comes over to say hello. Lloyd Webber asks Winner if he is coming to stay in Majorca, and tells me he's recently bought a house in Deja because Majorca now has the best restaurants in the world. Winner says rather ungratefully that he might come at Easter - I want to squeak, 'Oh I'll come any time!' Anyway, the meeting is satisfactory and afterwards Winner gives me quite a lecture on how journalists are always so nasty about Andrew and he is such a nice man.

Over pudding, Winner admits that his appetite for film directing is beginning to wane (possibly as a result of the stinking reviews he got for his last effort, Parting Shots ) but he loves writing, producing, directing and starring in the eSure insurance ads. Moreover, he boasts, last year for the first time he made more from earned than unearned income - 'I am a worker, Lynn' - largely thanks to the eSure ads. His other source of pride is that next year sees construction of the National Police Memorial in the Mall, designed by Norman Foster, the culmination of Winner's efforts for the Police Memorial Trust. Surely now he will be offered a knighthood? 'They haven't offered me a bar of chocolate and it's got to the point that if they offered, they can stuff it. I don't need it. I know who I am. I'm quite comfortable with my persona. It's like the tray of canapés - if it's there, I'll eat it, if it's not, I don't care.'

At three o'clock precisely, he looks at his watch and says he must go - he's got to test drive an Aston Martin which he is thinking of buying. So saying, he rises from the table. I am a bit confused because he hasn't even asked for the bill, but silly me - this is Winnerland - you don't get bills, it all goes on his account. So we walk out of the restaurant through ranks of smiling waiters, waving graciously at Jeremy King and all the other people who seem so thrilled to see us. But as Winner strolls the few yards to where his chauffeur is opening the door of his Rolls, he hoots, 'people sometimes ask me if I'd like to run a restaurant? I can't think of anything worse. I'd rather go down the sewers. I mean can you imagine? With people like me turning up, Lynn? No! Please! Hahahaha!'

So can Winner really get a table when and where he likes?

We rang Britain's best restaurants and asked for 'a table tonight at 8pm', first for Lynn Barber and then later for Michael Winner ...

Rick Stein's Seafood Restaurant Padstow Cornwall, 01841 532700

Can I book a table for Lynn Barber? 'I'm really sorry but the restaurant is full, it doesn't make any difference who she is.'
Can I book a table for Michael Winner? 'That will be fine.'

Le Caprice London SW1, 020 7629 2239

For Lynn Barber 'I don't have anything at that time. What's the name again? [Lynn Barber] Madam, I don't have anything, I'm sorry.'
For Michael Winner 'How many people will be eating with Mr Winner? I'm afraid we don't have his table available. Table 7. The person sitting there won't sit anywhere else either. He doesn't give us enough choice. It becomes such a headache. I know he won't eat here unless it's that table.'

Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's London W1, 020 7499 0099

For Lynn Barber 'I'll just check for you. We haven't got anything. [Mention the illustrious Lynn] It wouldn't really matter who you were calling on behalf of.
For Michael Winner 'What time would he like? That's fine.'

The Ivy London WC2, 020 7836 4751

For Lynn Barber 'We can put her on the waiting list ... We might get cancellations.'
For Michael Winner 'We're fully booked. [Say it's for Michael Winner] OK ... We have a table for two at eight for him.'

The Wolseley London W1, 020 7499 6996

For Lynn Barber 'I'm sorry, we have nothing until 9.30. Everything is haywire at the moment. I'm sorry. Bye bye.'
For Michael Winner 'What time? That's fine. [Say he wants his usual table.] I know where he likes.'

But finally ... Nobu London W1, 020 7447 4747

For Lynn Barber 'We've nothing. I'll put her on the waiting list.' (Ring back with a table.)
For Michael Winner 'At 8pm? It's fully booked. At such short notice I can't confirm anything.'

E&O London W11, 020 7229 5454

For Lynn Barber 'We're fully booked. I'll put her on the top of the waiting list. She writes for The Observer doesn't she? (Ring back with a table.)
For Michael Winner 'For Michael? That will be fine. He's a good customer.'

He didn't really say that, did he?

As a restaurant critic Michael Winner doesn't mince his words:

On La Mirande in Avignon It is the worst-run establishment I've come across. Dinner in the one-Michelin-starred restaurant was ludicrous.
December 2003

Indian restaurants These days Indian restaurants are getting above themselves. They all want to be posh. I don't like posh. I like simple.
Nov 2003

Tamarind, a Michelin-starred Indian restaurant In London It looked like a works canteen in Hull. Not that I've ever been to Hull or to a works canteen.
Nov 2003

The Cinnamon Club, London SW1 Everything I ate tasted of nothing. This was definitely, and by a long way, the worst Indian meal I've ever had.
Feb 2003

AA rosettes The AA Restaurant Guide is pathetic. An AA rosette is worth less than a used plastic cup. If AA car inspectors knew as much about vehicles as their food inspectors know about restaurants AA membership would be nil and falling.
Nov 2003

Le Caprice My flabber is still ghasted, as Frankie Howerd expostulated. I don't go to restaurants, I go to tables. If my regular table is booked, I happily divert. 'Is table X free for Saturday lunch?' I asked of the Caprice. 'Yes,' their man said. Twenty-four hours later Caprice manager phones, saying: 'I hear you've requested table X?' 'I've booked it,' I said. 'We'd already allocated it to someone else,' he said dismissively. 'Unbelievable!' I gasped.
Nov 2003

Arzak, one of the best restaurants in Spain The meal was so ghastly I'd rather not recall it. Every minuscule portion was irrelevant to life as I know it. A ravioli of foie gras, melon and light cheese tasted like mild soap.
Oct 2003

Midsummer House, Cambridge I can't believe it has a Michelin star. It's dreadful.
Aug 2003

Floriana, London SW3 'Do you ever get customers here?' I asked the waiter in the deserted dining room.
Jan 2003

Angela Hartnett at the Connaught To start I had white onion velouté with deep fried frog's legs in salsa verde. That was historic.
Dec 2002

La Buca di Sant' Antonio, Lucca The food was all historic.
Dec 2002

La Chaumière, London SW3 (now closed!) It is totally horrible. Two baskets arrived with two boiled eggs and seven small tomatoes in each. This could be of no interest to normal people. My sliced steak was tough, stringy and chewy. I spat it out and gave up.
Nov 2002

The Rib Room, Carlton hotel, London 'Would you please get Mr Winner a potato,' Nigella [Lawson] asked sweetly. The waiter looked baffled. Eventually I got one. To say the service is terrible is a gross understatement.
Nov 2002

Hotel de Paris, Monte Carlo I'd like you to carry this table outside,' I said to Mr Giana. He looked extremely po-faced. 'I'll see what I can do,' said Mr Giana. 'Make it work,' I said, a slight edge entering my normally docile tones.
Oct 2002

Chefs Gordon Ramsay is one of the greatest chefs in the world. By comparison, our other three-Michelin-star cook, The Waterside Inn's Michel Roux, is fit only for motorway cafés.
Dec 2001

Michael's Nook, Grasmere I noticed, with amazement, a Chateau Pétrus 1982 on the wine list at £995. This is unbelievably cheap. It is on offer at Gordon Ramsay for £3,000.
Aug 2001

Supermarkets I last went to one six years ago. I put my purchases in a basket, and you know what happened? There was a queue at the till. There was nobody ready to take my money. I put the basket down and walked out.
July 2001

Aroma II They'd reserved a good table for me by the window. I sat facing the room. If I'd faced the street, people would have been waving and smiling all night as they recognised me. That's nice, but ultimately tiring.
April 2001

Manzi's, London I hadn't been for 10 years, but two of my receptionists said it was still good. This proves it's dangerous to trust the views of staff.
April 2001

Spoon, Sanderson hotel, London The restaurant is hideous. The food was absolutely terrible. I finished with a dessert that almost defies description, but I'll manage. It was called Nutella tart. It tasted as if it had sat on a railway-station buffet for weeks.
March 2001

Women This is probably the last time you'll read the witty views of Miss Georgina Hristova. Applicants for the vacant position should write in triplicate with their CV and a recent photo. Please list every relationship you've had lasting more than three hours and include your full academic qualifications, although lack of them may not be a problem.
Aug 2002