Limp red tomatoes at Chiquito

This review was first published in July 2000

This last weekend in July has a special resonance for me. Saturday is Diamond Day, the De Beers sponsored day of racing at Ascot, which I attend with my racing advisor and infallible tipster Andrea Riva, and on Sunday it is the Cartier Polo at Windsor.

Over the years that I have been making the journey out of town to these events, one restaurant has continually fascinated me. Just by a busy junction, across the road from the Wheatsheaf pub, is the Virginia Water branch of Chiquito. Each time I pass, late for lunch in the De Beers dining-room, or overdue for cocktails in the Cartier marquee, I pause at the traffic lights and gaze with interest at this establishment. Its green-and-yellow neon sign lures me like a Lorelei, seducing me with its siren song. It looks so dismal, so spectacularly out of place that I promise myself to stop in on the way back for a quick quesadilla but, of course, I never do.

I imagine the countless others on their way out to the Cartier Polo feel the same. I can envisage Lucas White and Normandie nibbling on a nacho; Tania Bryer going bonkers for a burrito; Tara P-T troughing on tacos, Simon Mills munching on margarita chicken and Elton, well, I believe Sir Elton lives in Virginia Water so I guess he and David are down at Chiquito most nights, swapping trichological tips over Chiquito's Tex Mex Platter (for two or more to share).

Recently I realised the dream of several summers and booked a table at this wayside restaurant. As one about to launch oneself into the glittering social scene of Virginia Water, I wanted to make my debut on the local gourmet scene in a manner that would be the talk of the salons of this fragrant suburb for years, indeed generations to come.

A telephone call to the Rolls-Royce factory at Crewe, and their top driver, Peter Grant, was sent to Berkeley Square to collect a gleaming new Rolls-Royce Silver Seraph, which, by 7.30pm, was brought to a halt outside my fabulous stucco-fronted West London home.

We then collected Oliver Peyton, restaurateur, socialite and professional Irishman, from his restaurant Isola. When he heard where we were going, he said he would make sure to get something to eat first. Ha ha.

As we purred off into a drizzling July evening, he and I were transfixed by the satellite navigation device. Seeing the blinking arrow that indicated our Rolls moving along an electronically generated image of the M4 was close to an out-of-body experience, as was the almost immoral sumptuousness of our surroundings.

Once there, it seemed a shame to have to get out. Seeing Oliver standing outside Chiquito, fortifying himself with lungfuls of invigorating cigarette smoke, I had a powerful sense that we had just arrived on the set of a film by Quentin Tarantino. I seem to recall that Quent was involved in a film about vampires inhabiting a huge Tex Mex restaurant on the Mexican border.

Chiquito was packed, and whoever owns it must be on to a good thing. The upstairs bar is actually quite pleasant, cool, air conditioned and with a great view of the Wheatsheaf. However, I think they must have got change from about a grand when they decorated the ground-floor dining-room. What is more, someone had decided to make further economies by not cleaning our table. It was covered by a mildly adhesive and not completely unpleasant patina; doubtless testimony to the vigorous enjoyment of many bowls of El Gringos chilli con carne and several full racks of barbecue ribs - I would hazard a guess that the barbecue sauce contributed in no small amount to the unique table-top finish.

We looked for Sir Elton, but the nearest we saw was a man in a velvet shirt and George Michael beard; when his food arrived, his mouth dropped miraculously into his chest and was almost level with the table, allowing him to shovel in food with commendable rapidity.

All around us good burghers of Virginia Water - some of them seated at long tables - were 'chowing down', as I believe they say. The air was thick with the sound of what I took to be Mexican music and the smoke and aroma of sizzling fajita platters.