Settled in the sprawled luxuriousness of its timber-beamed, 80-cover space, our on-ramp to the unusually long menu was pan con tomate: crisped little loofahs of toast, heaped with a beautifully bright, ripe rush of purest, oil-drizzled summer. Chopped dexter beef, startled by a renegade hit of Amalfi lemon and clumped beside shoestring fries that were like God’s own Chipsticks, was somehow even more thrilling. And then, by the time we took delivery of a plate of Dorset clams and plump, succulent artichokes, cloaked in a chilli-flecked, poised marvel of a butter sauce, the two of us at the table couldn’t quite believe what was happening. “That sauce,” said my pal Richard, as we both went greedily back for more of a mottled, ambrosial puddle of jus gras and wild garlic, below morels, St George mushrooms and a translucent scrim of lardo. “It’s like chocolate.”