Not so Cock sure

Civic-minded people might know that the Corporation Of London wants to knock down the general market buildings next to the meat and poultry markets at Smithfield and replace them with 10-storey office blocks. The buildings that are to be removed if plans go ahead are not entirely beautiful, being some hotch potch of Victorian Frenchinfluenced stuff and clumsy replacements made in the Fifties after a fire. (I like them, but then I once worked for Wallpaper* and acquired a great taste/ignorant affection for concrete.)

The Corporation wants to make more dough from the meat market; the period building-huggers want to preserve a historic market.

I have a plan that might just work for them both. Turn Smithfield into an attraction as relevant to London life as Diggerland is to Devon. Much of Meat World (aka Atkins' World for the ladies) is already in place.

There's Simply Sausages for starters, and then a selection of mighty fine meaty restaurants such as St John and Smiths. Club Gascon serves foie gras seven ways - Prada Elaine lives in there, pretending she's doing her Atkins thing.

Meat World would be like Borough Market with more glamour and fewer love handles. All that would be required to make Meat World really thrilling are some scary, meat-themed rides curling out of the low-rise buildings, but no doubt EC rulings will put a stop to them as soon as someone gets a tummy ache.

Amy arrived at Meat World first. As I roamed Smithfield searching for The Cock Tavern on Poultry Avenue she rang to say, 'I am the only woman down here.' Will and I found her sitting at a yellow booth, seated around her were several executive butcher types in suits drinking beer.

The Cock opens at six am, when, as the manager told me, 'officially we are licensed to sell alcohol to anyone working in or buying from the market.' He presumes everyone's got a couple of nice fresh lamb chops on them. As bands of 20 coppers regularly come in for a pint after their nightshifts, I doubt the police will be coming round rifling your person for the pork chop that licenses the ale you are drinking, sir.

Before I go any further I must say that The Cock was filthy. I had to wade through puddles of smelly water to get to the loo and picking anything up off the table required a wrestle with the tacky surface before it came away with a mucky, smacking sound. Even the waitress noticed this when she cleared the table and we all laughed awkwardly as only Brits can. A fly buzzed around Will's head as he ate. Being in a basement, it pongs a bit of old chip fat. Only a good steam clean and some proper air-conditioning will sort this out.

The Cock is famous for its meat, it won't surprise you to know. For breakfast, Carmen, who has worked here since 1966, cooks up the sort of heaven for old-fashioned carnivores that only the old grill rooms produce at the other end of the market. Such devilled and devilish delights belong in a museum - or Meat World. For lunch, Roger, the lunchtime chef, turns out some pretty good meat, but it comes in sauces that range from fine - like the bearnaise that came with my fillet steak - to really disgusting. Will's sirloin came a la forestiere.

The Cock Tavern's forestiere is not a mushroom and meaty deglaze, it's a nasty conglomerate of the dullest mushrooms and the life's-too-short flavour of dried mixed herbs mixed up in a stock-based sauce which was oily and watery. Unless you like old-fashioned, unevolved Beefeater-type sauces, I would recommend you order sauces on the side.