JAMES PEMBROKE

VILLA DI GEGGIANO, CHISWICK APICIUS, CRANBROOK

When is the best time of year to eat out in England? Simple: mid-september to mid-november. The pressures of wondering whether rain will stop play are behind us and there’s scarcely any tinsel in sight. We Brits are in our natural furtive climate: some of us raging against the dying light; others enjoying the prospect of leaving a lunch table in the dark.

As you read this, you will be as Lindisfarne monks suffering under the wrath of the Viking invasion of office Christmas parties. Exchanging horned helmets for paper hats, office workers, sensible for 364/365ths of the year, will be rendered infantile. None of them will remember what they ordered, mainly because Sonia in accounts asked them whether they wanted turkey or salmon back in August; they will have developed a thirst for prosecco which would have shocked Beowulf, and will have developed a Norman Wisdom routine of tripping up on non-existent objects into your or your spouse’s lap.

Your only chance is to avoid the West End and major city centres, and head for suburbia or small harmless towns. Villa di Geggiano is a restaurant for all seasons; it is also wonderfully vast with its sitting room and private dining rooms. There’s a large terrace at the front, shaded by olive trees and sturdy umbrellas, and warmed by patio heaters; yet the main dining room is intimate and even romantic when the kitchen bell doesn’t ping. It has one of the best restaurant façades in London, based on its 16th-century mother ship in Tuscany, which Oldie readers visited five years ago. The Bandinelli family have been exporting their wines to Britain since 1725; so why not set up a restaurant to sell them?

One could spend many worse hours than sharing a plate of their own hams and salamis with a bottle of their organic wine for £26. Their pasta dishes