Grace and Flavour: 1776 at 1 Lombard Street

Hooray for February! The stiffest part of the year has been put to bed. I dealt with London in detox by belligerently having fun: I drank cocktails in Opium on Gerrard Street (find the jade door, talk your way into the top room, order something with absinthe that arrives in a medicine bottle emitting dry ice, forget all about tomorrow’s international conference Skype session). I was graceless in defeat at The Groucho Club’s Caitlin Moran Quiz Night, where the questions were mainly about herself and titbits she’d read about Kim Kardashian on the Mail Online.

I spent a funny evening with Frank Skinner, Jonathan Agnew and Miles Jupp, who all talked mainly about cricket. They are charming men but I stand by my belief that cricket is an enormously daft game, designed purposefully by men to be so dull that they’ve been able to hide within it for decades without women ever demanding to join in. I’ve eaten too many lobster rolls at the new Burger & Lobster on Bread Street, EC4, and spent the past few days existing on oatcakes, water and the odd Babybel Light, after seeing a paparazzi shot of myself and Clare Balding where my plump face looked like a satellite dish with a Rave smiley face drawn on.

Then it was off to Bank for dinner at 1776, the newly refurbished dining room at the back of 1 Lombard Street, with a menu by head chef Juri Ravagli, formerly of Drones, Harry’s Bar and George members’ clubs. 1776 is the year that 1 Lombard Street, a freshly restored Grade II-listed former bank, was first recorded. 1776 the restaurant is very ‘City’: large windows, light wooden floors, pale green walls. That it was once a bank is still fairly obvious.

I went with my friend, funnywoman Sarah Millican, whom I have loved since I first heard her on a Radio 4 show many moons ago talking about experimenting with cannabis by eating a hashcake and quietly thinking ‘a bit of butter icing wouldn’t have gone amiss’. She is a beacon of wiseness and fun. ‘We are here for dinner at 1776,’ I told the maître d’. ‘Ah! Maybe you ladies would like to stay in The Brasserie,’ he said. ‘It’s much nicer for you.’ I pulled a face that froze part of the Thames. ‘No, I want to eat in 1776.’ ‘It would be nicer in The Brasserie,’ he insisted. ‘I want to eat the 1776 menu,’ I snorted. Eventually he admitted that there was no one in 1776. Perfect, I thought. I’m in London, I can see ‘people’ any time.

I’d already investigated the typical clientele and discovered that it is ‘mostly male, suited and booted’. So I knew it would be the sort of place where I would be asked for a menu by some twerp who mistakes all feminine shapes for staff. ‘Where can I sit?’ one man shouted at me recently in Farringdon. ‘You can sit wherever you bloody well like. I’ll be over there eating my dinner,’ I barked back at him. Entering the enormous dining room felt much like sitting down for dinner at Saddam Hussein’s palace shortly after he and his family had scarpered. Trolleys were being pushed about bearing enormous bronze cloches. No music, just the sound of silence.

1776 serves fine yet curiously forgettable food at astronomical prices to people who would rather lose a kidney in a fencing bout than eat at MeatLiquor. I ate a perfectly delicious native lobster salad with a smattering of Puy lentils, a snip at £28. Sarah’s asparagus and duck egg salad on fine beans with a mustard sauce was a challenging entire ‘dippy’ duck egg. I had the caramelised black cod with ponzu sauce, red cabbage, root vegetables and pok choi. Black cod is rarely not wonderful and this was quite marvellous. Sarah had some dry-looking stuffed lamb, a special that had been waiting patiently under a cloche, all dressed up with nowhere to go. It was one of those dinners where we didn’t speak about the dinner. I finished with some beautiful fresh fig tart — we both admitted defeat with the chocolate cake that could have been used as a doorstop. 1776 is pleasant, pricey and I never want to set foot in the place again. I doubt this troubles them greatly.