Our last supper with Ken

This review was first published in April 2000

It isn't just in his political battles that Ken has a habit of coming full circle. His first restaurant review for this magazine was of El Parador, the tapas restaurant near Euston, three years ago, and now he's back again for a final supper.

Yes, Ken will no longer be reviewing restaurants. Inexplicably, he's ditching the pleasures of scoffing grouse at Le Caprice or quaffing Burgundy at The Ivy to devote himself full-time to winning some dreary old mayoral campaign. Au revoir to rubbing shoulders with the glitterati at St Martins Lane or salivating over the buttery mash at Bluebird, his favourite Conran haunt.

Instead, it will be dull policy papers and debating issues with men in suits. Sweaty cheese sandwiches and instant coffee. 'My life has already changed dramatically. I've only been to one good restaurant in the past month,' says Ken, dipping a wedge of bread into a dish of something that looks like mushy peas. Ah, the sacrifice. 'I've lost half a stone already,' he says cheerfully, although it's quite hard to see from where. His capacious Viyella shirt is rather well filled out.

'As soon as you get to an age to appreciate food and booze, you can't do it any more. It's just not fair. I can't mix my drink, either - gone are the days when I could drink red wine and port together. I was beginning to have a weight problem just as I took on this column,' he says, chewing ruminatively on his bread.

As Ken warms to his subject, Feltz style, the waiter hovers with more dishes of his tried-and-tested favourites. He particularly likes the rosario chorizo, spicy Spanish sausage (Ken's verdict: 'Really hot and spicy, wonderful') and the berenjenitas asadas, roasted baby aubergines (Ken's verdict: 'Lovely and garlicky. I've never come across these anywhere else').

The chewing continues but doesn't in anyway hamper his trademark nasal tones. Which is a polite way of saying that Ken has a habit of talking with his mouth full - but he does have so much to say. He ricochets from food to politics to 18th-century history and back again before the squid has arrived. For instance, he has noticed, over the years, that restaurants are a ruthless indicator of the economy.

'Take the recession in the Eighties. You could get in anywhere on a Friday night. Now you have to book good places even on a Monday evening. You don't need treasury analysis, you just need a restaurant index.' He has also pondered the irony that peasant food is now a bourgeois delicacy. 'You look at what stands as the best French cuisine and it's those old peasant dishes like pigs' trotters. It was a way for the poorest people to use all the old cuts of meat that the rich bastards didn't want.'

Then there are the really important issues. Like the wine menu. Ken strokes his chin. You can tell he's not really that bothered as long as it's red or white and flowing. 'What have you got that could sustain us through the evening?' he quizzes the waiter, then snaps the menu shut and says, 'Actually could you just keep bringing house rioja all night?'

The setting is suitably spartan; stone floor, white paper tablecloths and wooden chairs. In keeping with the last supper theme, Ken is here with his disciples - 12 or so helpers from his mayoral office. Seated at a long banqueting table, they reverently pass around bowls of olives and bread.

One follower is studiously engrossed in an article entitled, 'Ken The Conquering Hero Of London.' The others talk quietly among themselves while the Conquering Hero in question continues in garrulous mode. 'You know who my ideal dining companion would be?' he says with a hint of a smirk. Tony Blair? 'No. Queen Hatshepsut, the first female pharaoh, said to be the most beautiful woman in Egyptian history.' Otherwise, it would have to be someone with 'a wicked series of gossipy stories'. Failing an old queen, Peter Mandelson wouldn't be a bad second choice. 'I actually like him when he relaxes. Now he's someone who's got a wealth of dubious stories about people.'

Ken fell into reviewing food eight years ago when Rosie Boycott, then editor of Esquire magazine, asked him to be a restaurant reviewer. As with ES, he never thought it would last long and determined to make the most of a plum job.