Byfords is large and quaint. It serves food, cakes, flapjacks. Attached to it is a shop selling much the same; above it, luxurious rooms are let at £130 a night.
It’s owned and run by Iain and Clair Wilson. I didn’t know you could spell Clair without an e on the end, but she does. I never met her. She was at home with her children and declined to come in to greet me. How anyone can prefer their own children to me, I can not imagine.
There’s an exposed brick wall. A massive pile of logs for the real fireplace was stacked next to my bay window table. A mouth-watering display of cakes rested on the wide window ledge.
On a tour of the premises I took a chocolate flapjack from the deli counter. Didn’t like it. I’m not sure chocolate should be in flapjacks. “They sell very well,” said Iain, attempting to put me in my place.
“Your ordinary flapjack is excellent,” I said in the hope of mollifying him. “They’re just made of syrup, oats and butter. How can anyone mess that up?” asked Iain. “People can mess anything up,” I responded.
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The home-made bread was superb. So was my aromatic crispy duck soup. I thought Duck Soup was just the name of a Marx Brothers movie. I tried a vanilla milkshake. “Rather thin,” I dictated into my tape.
“The best milkshakes are in Harrods at Morellis,” explained Paola. She’s a great fan of Morellis milkshakes. I’m not sure I can face the crowds in Harrods to check them out. So I drank Paola’s milkshake instead. “You call me a pig,” said Paola, “You’re a pig! You’ve taken all of my milkshake. That’s after you grabbed six sweets from different plastic trays at the sweet shop!” I tried a Bakewell tart. Poor. Then a Victoria sponge. Not good at all, very clammy. Paola was having cheese on toast with apple and mint chutney. I ate some. It was fantastic. The banana bread was very good too. I was beginning to feel rather bloated. So we left.
“That restaurant was full of tall young women with very long legs, wearing thin dark blue jeans,” I observed as we walked past a twee shop called Art-e-fax. “That’s what you wanted to be there,” said Paola. “It wasn’t. There were lots of old people, children and young mums.”
One thing’s for sure, San Lorenzo in Knightsbridge is full of women with plastic surgery. From my regular table, facing steps leading down from the entrance bar, I witness a Miss Plastic Surgery pageant. Paola and I seem to be the only people with our own, unmessed about faces.
Restaurant critics tend to dismiss San Lorenzo. Ridiculous. It’s extremely good. The home-made pasta — and even the bought-in spaghetti — are marvellous.
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Paola’s parents were born in Italy. She’s a great cook and she thinks San Lorenzo is like mama’s cooking. Lots of the stuff there is superb.
Watching the owner, Mara, aged — well, shall we say not young — working the room and checking on every detail is to observe one of the greatest restaurant professionals.
Her chocolate ice cream is definitely historic. The best ever by a long way. Another advantage is, with my Kensington and Chelsea parking permit attached to my Suzuki Grand Vitara, I can park easily.
Unfortunately, the wardens in Westminster don’t acknowledge the permit. I was at the Ivy enjoying excellent salt-beef and carrots when they advised me I was getting booked.
I rushed out, thanked the warden and asked: “Now I’ve got a ticket, can I be clamped?” “No,” he said firmly. Some 20 minutes later, while I was pouring cream on my jelly, I was clamped! I phoned from the table and they released the Suzuki 10 minutes later.
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I should have listened to Paola. She told me to park in a forecourt opposite. It was Sunday lunchtime and the building was closed, Nobody would have minded. Still, it kept the Westminster traffic people busy. And helped subsidise the rates.
Here’s a naughty tip: if you see a warden on the west side of West Street, where the Ivy is, drive over to the opposite kerb. That comes under Camden. Forget about eating. Just endlessly take your car from one side of the road to the other.
The Ivy won’t care. They still, deservedly, get a thousand reservation requests a day. One thousand and one if you count me.