Hyde Park, W2. Until January 3, 2010, 10am-10pm (except Christmas Day)
Five stars Capt Hilts Four stars Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett Three stars Flight Lt Sandy Macdonald Two stars Kuhn One star Von Luger
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This season has been the best that anyone can remember for white truffles. All the Italians in London are waxing lyrical - actually, the Italians don't do lyrical, they wax prepubescent, then they wax hysterical, and finally they wax sentimental. Nothing brings on the sad pleasure of Latin morbus domi like a vivid seasonal taste. They start falsetto whining about their mothers and aunts, the steaming pots, the smells of home, the delicacies passed to bare-legged children at kitchen doors, the scent of pine and lemon in the evening air, the uncles and cousins out in the fields kidnapping industrialists and keeping them in caves with a goat's cheese, their dark-eyed sisters singing sad love songs in cypress-inky alleys, turning tricks for American airmen, and the communist mayor taking bribes from German homosexuals who want to turn ancient farms into holiday homes.
All this, for them, is caught in a whiff of alba truffle. I gave one to the Blonde as a present. "Close your eyes and put out your hand," I said. "I know what it is, I can smell you coming," she said, which was appropriate - part of the attraction of the truffle is that it imitates the nidor of the hot hormone found in bull semen. I tell you, a truffle is the great date present. You're on a definite promise. Is that a truffle in your pocket, or am I actually pleased to see you?
There are dozens of ways to eat truffle. The best are the simplest: pasta with butter and pepper; risotto; cheese soup. The accompaniment should be fatty and cheap. The truffle has a particular affinity with egg: last week I had dinner with Fay Maschler and her husband Reg at Riva. Andrea Riva produced three of the best truffle dishes: hot cheese with fresh truffle and polenta chips; then an orange-yolked egg fried over a bed of cavolo nero, the black cabbage of winter; and finally, vanilla ice cream with truffle grated over it. I resisted this, suspecting a spoilt gimmick. London is full of restaurants making truffle martinis and truffle tandoori, but I should have trusted Andrea. It was sublime. Against all expectations, truffle ice cream is fabulous. And if you analyse the dish, it makes sense. There's the egg and the fat, and vanilla is a strange transvestite flavour, as at home in a lobster as a victoria sponge. Let me tell you, truffle ice cream may well be the most powerful aphrodisiac known to Italians, and therefore the universe. Don't give it to anyone you're not prepared to surrender to.
You know those dystopian films that speculate about what England would have been like if the Germans had won the war? Well, they'd have made it into a theme park. Winter Wonderland, in London's Hyde Park, is precisely what occupied Britain would have felt like if the EU had turned out to be the Volksunion. They try to tell you it's a traditional Bavarian winter market transported to London with fraternal greetings for our edification and jollity, but oh, ho, ho, ho, it's not. It's the Santa has landed. It's Blitz Noel. From a distance, it all looks like a regular fair: the carousels and Ferris wheels and a V-2 launch pad, the flashing lights and the colours, the familiar screams, the perennial Chrimbo game of spot the paedo with his festive sack and gaffer tape. But it's not what it seems. I don't like it, sergeant. The shifty young gypsies working the rides are just too blonde. Too disciplined and polite. They don't smirk or stick their hands up your girlfriend's frock on the dodgems. The signs are written in Deutschisch, a Euro-patois. The large mechanical monster outside the House of Horror says, "For you, Tommy, the war is over. The horror has just begun," with an odd accent. And the dummies hanging from the gibbet appear to have pink triangles.
The amplified pop music sounds strangely like Tomorrow Belongs to Me, and then it struck me: I know what's wrong! My God, there are no rifle ranges. Of course. They don't want them falling into the hands of the Resistance.
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A pair of bobbies saunter past. I'm about to mention my fears, but think twice. How many policemen have you seen with monocles and fencing scars? The traditional English carnival grub has been replaced by wiener schnitzel, pretzels and mulled wine, which, in all Churchillian fairness, I must say is an improvement. I tried Flemish pancakes made into small bubos with Nutella smeared on them. They were like Goebbels's haemorrhoids, so not that bad. And then a young Brown Shirt accosted me, legs apart, his thumbs in his belt. He laughed. "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, you need a sausage, vanquished Englischer friend." No I don't. "I think you do." He pushed a hot bratwurst from the stall, Wurst Koch, into my hand. "That will be four Reichtokens" - £4 in old money - "help yourself to Deutsche mustard for me." Biting through the surprisingly tough skin, it wasn't quite the worst koch I've ever eaten, but it was pretty awful.
My Blonde and I had brought the multiples: our two and another matched pair, Elodie and Hardie. Being parents, of course, we forced them onto a little carousel of vintage cars and trains. They sat, pale and frightened in their warm coats, not knowing why they were being pushed into ancient cars. It was the Kindertransport. Evacuees off to Canada. The Pomeranian on the controls leered and pulled a lever. Our children slid away to the sound of a brass band playing Lili Marlene. I forgot to put their labels on! They started to wail and disappeared around the corner.
The crowd in Winter Vaterland are almost all subcontinental: Indians and Pakistanis, all having a marvellous time. Flora, my eldest daughter, started to fraternise and bought a mug of gluhwein for eight Reichtokens (four RT deposit on the mug). "This is a £3 bottle of wine," she said. "I know because it's what we drank in the dorm. It tastes like gingerbread man's pee." She also pointed out a stall that was selling pruning secateurs. "Who goes to a fair to buy secateurs?" A Christmas party of Gestapo torturers, that's who.
We rescued the inconsolable kids and made our way across the dark park to Switzerland and safety. I stepped over a bridge and a German said: "Wait, the train is coming. We must get on the train." I made a dash for it, shouting, "She's in the attic!" as the black night enveloped us. I've always hated funfairs, I said to the Blonde. "Yes," she said. "So nice of you not to pass it on to the children."
For those of you who are concerned that this piece panders to out-moded and embarrassing stereotypes, let me remind you, that's what Christmas is all about.