Very tasty: Nigella’s TV firm nets her £3million

T he past four years have been sour to the point of bitterness for domestic goddess Nigella Lawson, whose marriage to Charles Saatchi publicly disintegrated as he locked his hands around her throat outside a Mayfair restaurant.

Since then, Nigella, 57, has suffered the axing of her U.S. cookery show, The Taste.

But it’s entirely appropriate that the cover of her latest cookery book, At My Table, which she revealed to fans on social media yesterday, should show her relaxed, smiling and radiating contentment.

Indeed, it might be said that hers is a £3 million smile. For she has, I can disclose, just pocketed £3,075,626 — not from advance book sales but as a result of the liquidation of her television company, Pabulum Productions, which was first incorporated in 2001 shortly after Nigella Bites launched to great acclaim.

It’s a stunning result, £800,000 more than had been expected when, a year ago, Nigella, the sole director, put the company into voluntary liquidation. At the time, it was anticipated she would ultimately receive a windfall of £2,244,987, after debts of £320,918 and a tax bill of £20,923 had been paid off.

Nigella has not turned her back on TV but is thought to be executing a canny tax-planning manoeuvre as the Chancellor, Philip hammond, has his eye on one-man companies of the sort favoured by lavishly remunerated BBC stars.

A move to operating as a sole trader would also mean she is not under obligation to file public accounts at Companies house.

Such financial dexterity will surely have earned the approval of her father, former Chancellor of the exchequer Nigel ( now Lord) Lawson.

The bonus will not go amiss. Nigella, who sought no financial settlement from ex- husband Saatchi, was obliged to take out a mortgage on her new house north of hyde Park.

Not that she was sad to abandon the residence they’d shared in eaton Square, Belgravia, where, she said, she was allowed to have ‘ dinner parties once on a two-year basis’.

‘I’m sure my wife’s food is fantastic,’ Saatchi once said, ‘but it’s a bit wasted on me.

‘I like toast with cheese spread and Weetabix for supper.’