Restaurants James Pembroke

DAPHNE’S, DRAYCOTT AVENUE, LONDON SW3 TOM BROWNS BRASSERIE, GUNTHORPE

I want to confirm what you’ve always suspected: the restaurant business has confessed it’s dependent on you – well, those of you older than the Editor. Britain’s over-fifties went out for a billion lunches last year, a quarter of the total. Restaurateurs, ignore us at your peril: lunch is ours and we know it’s the best meal of the day.

Luncheon is derived from the medieval word ‘nunch’ or ‘nuncheon’ and, according to Samuel Johnson, was ‘as much food as one’s hand can hold… a piece of victuals to be eaten between meals so not even a meal in itself’.

Lunch firmly wedged itself in between breakfast and dinner, whose gong was sounded later and later, from 1pm in the time of Henry VIII to 2pm with Cromwell, until it reached 8pm in the Edwardian era. Men were too busy at work; so lunch was truly launched by women, not least by the likes of Jane Austen, who referred to it as ‘noonshine’, and Margaret Shlegel, who, in Howards End, has lunch with Henry Wilcox at our very own Simpson’s (not in the Grand Divan, as on the recent telly series, but in our Literary Lunch room).

Daphne’s of Old Chelsea was reopened in 2014, fifty years after it was launched by Daphne Rye, the director and casting agent, who discovered Richard Burton. I was worried that Richard Caring, who famously eschews lunch, might strip it of all its crimson glory and render it that Hotel Grey of all modern interiors.

The crimson walls may have joined Daphne upstairs, but what a triumph of restaurant design! There’s now a long, marble-topped bar as you come in, Murano chandeliers and happy if unchallenging paintings. The staff are just so good. The menu is how New Chelsea folk like their Italian: Not-italian

– pappardelle must always come with wild boar ragu; spaghetti has to be alle vongole; and truffles must be sprinkled like 1960s parmesan. That said, it’s the most glamorous restaurant near Museumland. Give your grandchildren a plate of zucchine fritte while you play at being Burton and Taylor.

Last October, I stayed with applegrowing friends for the Bramley Apple Festival, in Southwell Minster, birth and resting place of the first tree planted 200 years ago by a little girl armed with a pip. The word is that sales of the Bramley are declining because the ‘youf’ can’t be bothered to peel and cook them.

So we comforted ourselves with the greatest bargain Sunday lunch north of Watford Gap. Roast pork with all the trimmings can be had for £10.95, and the very best roast beef for £13.95, at Tom Browns Brasserie, bang on the River Trent.

The décor is Hotel Grey but the setting for those heading up the M1 is ideal and, if late, you can stay with said friends who have bought a ready-made Regency B&B, near Newark. One snag about Tom Browns Brasserie: the apple sauce wasn’t made with Bramleys. Unforgivable.

Daphne’s, 112 Draycott Avenue, London SW3 3AE; www.daphnes-restaurant. co.uk, 020 7589 4257; Mon-fri lunch: two courses £25.50

Tom Browns Brasserie, Trentside, Gunthorpe, Nottinghamshire NG14 7FB; www.tombrowns.co.uk, 0115 966 3642; Early Bird menu (Mon-sat lunch; SunThur dinner): three courses £22.50. Also, www.willoughbyhousebandb.co.uk