In the name of world harmony, I’m going to pretend that this week’s restaurant is in the quaint English city of Bumwiddle-on-Thames. Because the real name of the city seems to drive the world into conniptions. It is a name so loaded with history and snobbery and reverse snobbery, that incurs such rage and defensiveness on all sides, that it just isn’t fair, in a restaurant review, to bring all that baggage along.

But if we pretend that Wilding is a newish wine-driven bistro in Bumwiddle-on-Thames, which was brought to my attention by the Times writer and proud Bumwiddle resident Andrew Billen, we can neatly sidestep all of that. Indeed, we can aver that, despite boasting apparently very propitious circumstances, Bumwiddle has never had much