Rhodes Twenty Four is like a new airport terminal

I’d been thinking about Gary Rhodes, realising I hadn’t seen his cheeky-chappie grin or finger-in-the-lightbulb hairdo of late. Of all the celebrity chefs, he seemed to have turned his slender back on the limelight. No pious lectures, no TV series, no rehashed book to promote, no studied swearing. Where’s Gary, I wondered?

Then up pops a photo showing a brand-new Rhodes. Out goes the waif-like appearance that made him look like an extra in Oliver! In comes muscle and an impressive set of pecs. Gary has undergone a metamorphosis and become a beef-cake. This made me wonder whether anything different had happened to his cooking, which I’ve sampled variously over the years. Piers Morgan and I used to trough it at the now defunct City Rhodes restaurant, but those were the days when he could still appear in public without (allegedly) being mobbed.

Getting into Rhodes Twenty Four, Gary’s restaurant on the 24th floor of Tower 42, was the hardest part (perhaps we should call it making in-Rhodes), and I’m not just talking about booking a table. It’s not terribly welcoming. Three women sit in a line at a desk talking into headsets. You are then given a plastic card to take you through the security gate and your bag is screened. It’s a bit like being in a brand-new airport terminal but, unlike in the dreaded T5, you do actually get your bag back.

Confusing coloured arrows direct you to a lift that zooms you up to the 24th floor and deposits you in a space-age seating area with chairs shaped like inverted commas. A series of frosted-glass doors lead into the restaurant itself.

I’d chosen lunchtime to get the best possible light over what promised to be a stunning City panorama, but when I arrived the romantic novelist was already there, complaining that she’d counted over 20 cranes outside. ‘I was expecting a room with a view,’ she wailed. ‘But instead it looks like a giant building site.’

Explaining that City regeneration was both good and necessary (and as my seat was facing the splendid Gherkin, I meant it), we chomped on small warm rolls while we ordered. It’s a typically Rhodesian kind of menu, featuring the best of British grub with an imaginative twist.

Since I had the tail end of a cold, all I wanted was comfort food in manageable portions, so I did that LA thing of ordering two starters. First came split pea soup with a poached egg sitting on the bottom of the bowl. The soup was as green as AstroTurf and the egg was perfectly runny. Egg in soup is a very Spanish thing and I love it.

The novelist chose three delicious roasted scallops, but these were accompanied by salsify which she says you now find everywhere even though it’s completely devoid of taste. There was also a conical scoop of creamy mash, which she left.

While we waited (and it was a very long wait indeed), we studied the other diners. Not much of a glamour quotient – lots of City men eating suet – although the novelist noticed that several of the women were wearing expensive skyscraper heels.

Eventually, our main courses arrived. Mine was a teeny lobster omelette thermidor which came in a miniature frying pan and looked like a baby brûlée. It was as rich as Donald Trump and its golden gloopiness sang of free-range eggs (though at £13.50, it didn’t come cheap). My guest picked sea bass which sat on a bed of red onion and came with yet another portion of mash (which again she left). Mashed potato isn’t very girlie, she explained – bland, bikini-unfriendly, and why eat something in a restaurant you can easily make yourself at home?