After five years as a fashion editor, there is not much I don't know about canapés. While most of my comrades spend their lives dodging waitresses for fear of catching calories, I am the one loitering just outside the doors to the kitchen. I have dined on all-black canapés at the opening of a Yves Saint Laurent boutique and eaten mini-haggis with Dita Von Teese. I know how many calories are in an average piece of sushi (40) and have done in-depth research on how many canapés you need to eat to forgo dinner (10).
The Ledbury, although my first experience of eating with a knife and fork and calling it work, is familiar territory for a fashion girl: I have probably eaten my body weight in canapés in boutiques on Ledbury Road alone. And who do I spot when I arrive but Alice Temperley, star of London Fashion Week? Now, because I have been swotting up, I know that the front-of-house woman is called Helena Hill. She has a fabulous, whisky-and-cigarettes voice that makes her sound both motherly and conspiratorial, a combination that works a treat for making one feel at home. Soon I am settled on a sofa drinking an excellent bellini.
At school I learned Russian because I was planning on being a spy; dashing to the loo to make secret notes is the nearest I've got so far. I think I'm rather good at it (this may be the bellini talking), but my co-conspirator is rather letting the side down. Everyone knows the first rule of espionage is to blend in. Most of the male clientele are in suits, and the few who aren't are wearing the west London posh male smart-casual uniform of artfully faded jeans, white shirt and dark blazer, à la Will Young. Unfortunately, my husband Tom is wearing a raspberry-pink polo shirt. They may not clock we are spies, but they certainly realise we aren't from round these parts.
It doesn't take great detective skills to figure out that the signs for dinner are encouraging. The Ledbury marks the first head chef role for Brett Graham, former sous-chef at the Square and Young Chef of the Year (he is still only 26). Even better, Graham was born and trained in Australia, and I love restaurant cooking in Australia. We enter into our traditional marital who-can-order-better competition (sophisticated and mature relationship, I know). Tom's lattice-like salad of spring vegetables is sharp and delicious, with perfect asparagus and beetroot and a hum of garlic. But I leap into pole position with roast scallops, plump and melting, topped with a spiky sprig of deep-fried squid. The accompanying sweet sauce verges on overkill, but it's still delicious.
To follow, Tom has fillet of beef with shallot purée, a sly move since everyone knows that beef fillet is the easy road to being crowned menu champion. And it is a classic, beautifully done. But, again, I win. My roast pigeon arrives, four-and-twenty-blackbirds style, in a domed china dish topped with ornamental pie flute. Inside, in a pale, fragrant consommé, was pigeon breast of the most sublime texture, as smooth to the knife as a scoop of ice cream as it starts to melt at the edges.
The decor confirms the Ledbury as a serious foodie establishment, rather than a vogueish fashion haunt. But then, the place has pedigree: it's the latest venture of Nigel Platts-Martin, owner of, among others, the Square with its two Michelin stars. The decor is simple: dark wood floors, huge white windows and simple white linen. The only odd touch is the long, shiny, relief-patterned black curtains, which are more Spearmint Rhino than upscale restaurant.
The atmosphere is serene and measured, but not pompous: for instance, what I know about wine could be written on a champagne cork, but the sommelier, Dawn Davies, is charm itself. Despite our complete inability to give her any direction, she mind-reads and recommends a 2002 Chilean syrah, which is like drinking a really delicious, softly spiced damson pudding.
Before we address the pressing matter of pudding proper, we are presented with a dinky shot of passion fruit meringue pie. As someone who will never be able to diet successfully while there is a pudding menu within five miles, and who harbours a nostalgic soft spot for the lemon meringue pies of the early 1980s, this is like a free shot of pure heaven. It eclipses Tom's vanilla and date tart, and even gives my chocolate soufflé with honeycomb and banana a run for its money. But in the end the soufflé wins. And with it, of course, I do too.
The next day, I canvas the opinion of the very fashionable Ms Temperley. I am not sure this is quite the done thing for a serious restaurant critic, but never mind. Her first comments are, perhaps predictably, aesthetic - she was not quite won over by the decor and atmosphere, which she found a little chilly - but she declares the food "absolutely delicious." Although, of course, it should be: dinner for two is around £140, which, in my currency, converts to half a Diane von Furstenberg dress on this road or a whole holiday wardrobe a couple of miles away at Topshop. Lucky, then, that the food is absolutely fabulous.
