This article is taken from the November 2024 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

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In 2011, I was one of several historians lured into participating in an episode of the popular TV show Supersizers, themed around the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Had I known that it involved being forced into a fascinator to consume Eggs Drumkilbo, the BBC could have kept their fifty quid. I don’t believe the scene made it through the edit, as none of us could keep the revulsion off our faces.

Eggs Drumkilbo is an abomination in aspic, involving lobster, prawns, hard boiled eggs, anchovy essence, Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco in tomato jelly. Reputedly popular with the Queen Mother, it was served at the Princess Royal’s wedding in 1973 and again for Andrew and Fergie in 1986. Lucky dish, then.

It’s still on the menu at The Goring, from where the Princess of Wales was married — perhaps they have to keep it in order to retain their royal warrant, or maybe its trembling, scarlet and gold surface evokes the last lost twilight of the Edwardian summer, that time of laughter and delight imponderable as gossamer and dew.

Still owned by the Goring family, the hotel opened in 1910 and the kitchen has just been refurbished for the first time in a century, whilst the dining room has been spruced up by Russell Sage in opulent swags of pale pea-coloured silk.

The carpet is ankle-deep, the tables acres apart, the stoves are invisible, as they should be, and the only music is the sizzle of the flambé trolley. Bliss enough before one even gets to the silky sourdough with Marmite butter, or perhaps a little pot of Oscietra with charming doll’s house blinis to get things started.

The Goring won its Michelin star in 2016, in part for its promotion of British ingredients, but both the space and the menu feel curiously French in their serious dedication to pleasure — the belle époque offered up on a plate.

Chef Graham Squire (formerly of Claridge’s and Le Manoir) has intelligently stuck with the brief, adding more daring, contemporary interpretations of classic combinations.

Spiced duck liver with braised black fig was both delicate and punchy (if perhaps slightly heavy-handed with the salt), roast Orkney scallop with baked celeriac and pickled apple managed to be both familiar and truly surprising, the nuttiness of the root enhanced with a hazelnut and truffle butter; crisp, sweet and woodsy.

Wild sea bass ceviche with ajo blanco, melon and hogweed was a brilliant combination of the humble and the luxurious, again building on the dense flavour of the root to layer up the contrasts.

Deirdre’s main course of Dover sole with globe artichoke in barigoule and crispy beer batter continued the theme, the braised artichoke fragrant with bay and perhaps a sliver of allium, subtle but not overpowering.

First amongst equals though was my venison, which came sanguine and glorious with a jaunty little hotpot pie, plums and smoked ricotta. As with the blinis, someone in the kitchen has clocked the delight of the miniature, not in the sense of genteel or dainty, but the childish joy of littleness.

Just the sight of it made me laugh; the taste, however, was deeply adult, the elusive “blood-feel” required for venison voluptuously dialled up by the sting of the cheese. Truffled potato purée was as pillowy and creamy as a Gaiety Girl’s thigh.

As usual, we squabbled over the wine list, which at The Goring is very much worth squabbling about, including whites from Czechia, Croatia and Turkey and reds from Morocco and Uruguay. We settled on a splendidly flexible 2015 Chassagne-Montrachet: citrussy enough for the fish and all velvet honey for the deer.

Whoever it was that said nothing nasty could ever be allowed to happen at The Ritz obviously hadn’t had dinner here. Grand without bombast, smart but not snooty, the restaurant also feels very un-hotel like; as in the best drawing rooms, everything goes with but doesn’t match.

Perhaps it’s the rose-coloured sofas drawn up at some of the tables, perhaps the discreet oohs and ahs when the crêpes Suzette appear, but there’s also a whiff of fin de siècle naughtiness about The Goring.

Deirdre said it made her feel as though she were in a pavilion in the Bois de Boulogne, about to test her diamonds on the mirror, which is a level of enchantment seldom found in the environs of Victoria Station.

The cost is about the only thing not to love about The Goring, but it’s worth it — not just for the extraordinary level of the cooking, but the sense of being momentarily swaddled in the plushiest of cocoons. Besides, one can have a very inferior time in London at twice the price.

One urban myth claims the existence of a secret tunnel between The Goring and Buckingham Palace, so much do the Windsors love it, which would be an opportunity for a Prince Andrew gag if the food weren’t so much more worth talking about. It was also Margaret Thatcher’s favourite place to dine, but despite that and the evil Eggs, it is perfect.

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Goring Hotel, 15 Beeston Place, London