Cooking is an art for Marcus Wareing

It's not easy being a pantomime star. Come November, while the rest of us are modelling tailored winter coats, Aladdins and Cinderellas are going through their paces up and down the country. Bare of glitter and bereft of satin, they strut their stuff in freezing-cold rehearsal halls, conjuring up images of the over-excited children who will largely comprise their audience. Two performances daily, hardly any time off; by Christmas day they're worn out and there's still a whole month to go. (Your heart's bleeding, isn't it?)

I was meeting a soap star who's just about to play Buttons, and since he's going to be existing on tepid takeaways for the foreseeable future, he asked to eat 'something amazing, a meal I'll never forget'.

That's as tall an order as trying to create a glass carriage out of a pumpkin. Or a diplomat out of Jonathan Ross. One man's meat and all that.

I took him to The Berkeley hotel since one of the most amazing meals I've ever eaten was cooked for me by chef Marcus Wareing, in the days when the restaurant there was called Pétrus. Now the name has been changed to Marcus Wareing At The Berkeley. Simple. It does what it says on the tin - except I'm fairly sure that no tin ever finds its way into the kitchens of the marvellous Mr Wareing.

Perhaps the chef's formidable reputation is responsible for the hushed and reverential atmosphere, with people talking in low voices the way they do in church just before a wedding begins. The décor remains masculine with lots of dark wood and claret-coloured walls - and male customers predominated. The staff are welcoming and utterly charming, even to the soap star, who was sporting an alarming hairstyle that made him look as if he'd spent his morning with his finger stuck in a light socket.

Treats began arriving almost immediately: first came tiny triangles of foie gras that had been crisped at the edges. Incredible. Then a miniature bowl of hummus with a doll's-house-size spoon and croutons. Next, a shot glass of mushroom soup topped with a cold truffle foam that melted as you drank the warm soup through it. It looked like cappuccino and tasted like nectar and the actor remarked in a dazed voice that we hadn't even started the meal.

To begin with, he chose hare. Fanned out over a plate dotted with blackberries and port reduction were neat little portions of different sections of the gamey-tasting beast. You could say Marcus is good at splitting hares. My tuna ballotine arrived with spiced baby pineapple and marinated mooli and was flavoured with cardamom but the clever twist was the flecks of mint that dotted the seared exterior, so that the rare slices of fish looked exactly like little pieces of watermelon. It was beautiful and surreal and delicious, served as an illustration of Wareing's skills; he makes you aware that cooking can be an art form.

Wanting a main course that was 'exciting', my guest opted for monkfish with chicken wings. It sounds as if it shouldn't work. It does. We wondered why chicken wings are so underused in British cookery. My poached and glazed Anjou pigeon came with girolles, kohlrabi, cobnuts and amaretti. This is something you would never try at home, but the combination of flavours and textures worked brilliantly. Inevitably, we were too full for pudding but we couldn't resist truffles from the chocolate trolley, which resembled something Roald Dahl might have written about. Wine we drank by the glass, chosen by the sommelier.

This is a very grown-up place; somewhere to come if you want an unforgettable meal. Yes, it's complex, but the results provoke a very simple response: pure pleasure. The lunch set menu is £35 for three courses, which I think is astonishingly good value for world-class cooking like this.

Outside, as the wind whipped through the stillbuoyant strands of the soap star's hair, he reflected that Marcus Wareing might just be the best chef in England. All together now: Oh, yes he is!

Marcus Wareing At The Berkeley
Wilton Place, London, SW1X 7RL