Tear-jerking food at Oslo Court

Comfort and joy. That’s what I crave in the middle of a gloomy period – and I don’t see why all the best sentiments should be stockpiled for Christmas. The week began with hopes raised by scientists, who were declaring good news for a change. Apparently, global warming is slowing down. Sadly, it certainly seemed that way from where I was standing: bitterly cold with relentless rain, skies as dark as a politician’s heart and summer a forlorn hope – a bit like finding a decent Mayor for London.

I was booked to have dinner at Oslo Court and I was dreading it – mainly because everyone had told me how wonderful it was. One of my cousins travels miles to eat there on high days and holidays. Matt Lucas announced on Desert Island Discs that it was his favourite restaurant. And if someone promises you you’re going to love something, doesn’t your heart just sink? Great expectations always leave me as disappointed as Miss Havisham.

My mood wasn’t brightened by the journey. It’s an impossible place to find, set in an anonymous-looking tower block a few minutes’ drive from St John’s Wood Tube. But perhaps its inaccessibility adds to its allure, like the lover who always plays hard to get.

Oslo Court has been here for 25 years, and it shows. If ever business dipped, it could easily bolster its income by renting itself out as a Eighties location set. The room is large and low, and the tables are dressed with heavy drapery the colour of tinned salmon. Legions of staff – all starkly dressed in contrasting black – line the walls like theatre usherettes waiting for the performance to begin.

The first things you notice are the attention to detail and the outmoded concept of offering you plenty to eat. There are crudités with aïoli set at each table, along with a whole basket of melba toast.

Warm, buttered rolls arrived and I knew then that resistance was futile. They were delicious and I could have sat eating them all night. I was meeting an actress who had been dieting for a part and when she arrived, she fell upon the crudités with the voracity of John Prescott on seeing a tin of condensed milk.

The menu has not moved with the times either. This is a world where lobster and crab cocktails glide by in giant, ice-filled glasses and the dessert trolley reigns supreme. We ordered starters from the specials list, which was impressively varied and lovingly recited by the female maître d’. The actress chose oysters, telling me that half a dozen were only ‘half a WeightWatchers point’ (she had nine). My fresh young asparagus came with a selection of accompaniments and I chose hot, melted butter.

Staff clucked and fussed over us and brought me glass after glass of house wine (all excellent) and as we were now both well into Eighties mode, we ordered steak. Unfashionably large portions arrived and my slices of beef Wellington tasted so nostalgically good that I almost wept. The actress said her beef fillet was tender enough to cut with a teaspoon, and it came coated in a definitive poivre sauce. Chips – astonishingly – were asymmetrical and tasted so good that I think they may have been homemade.

We looked around the room while telling ourselves we were full (which we were). It was an unremarkable Wednesday evening and yet the place was as busy as a bookie’s on Grand National day. The customers weren’t remotely glamorous or showy, just an eclectic bunch of people quietly enjoying their dinner.

The waiter in charge of puddings is clearly a stalwart and ‘personality’ – he was wearing a waistcoat of many colours – and his camp enthusiasm made a pudding impossible to refuse. Crème brûlée was as caramel-crunchy as we’d anticipated, but it was my strawberry flan that was the show-stealer. It was a proper pudding with cream and ice cream, fruit and pastry. I had to fight to finish it myself, since the actress’s brûlée was much smaller and she had predictably abandoned her calorie-counting during the main course. Coffees were accompanied by a dish of sweets that was completely unnecessary – but somehow we managed most of them.