La Luna, Godalming, restaurant

Glancing for guidance at that standard work of reference, Norman’s Iron Rules of Restaurant Criticism (Fictitious Drivel Press, £0.49), I see that No. 17 states this: “When judging an Italian restaurant, the mandatory first step is to apply the Which Blair Test.” Lest it be new to you, Rule 17 insists that all Italians fall under one of these headers: 1. The Lionel Blair. This is the traditional trattoria, so hard to find these days, with wicker chianti bottles hanging from the ceiling, powdered Parmesan, the gigantic phallic pepper pot, and walls laden with snaps of the owner posing with minor celebs, Lionel invariably among them, grinning the rictus that warns of an imminent and entirely inexplicable tap dance. 2. The Tony Blair. When the Lionel fell from grace, the Tony – typified by the now defunct Granita of Islington, home of the mythical deal with Gordon Brown – took over. The walls are given to abstract daubs, the Parmesan is shaved, and the pepper pots conventionally sized, while the menu concentrates on lighter, fresher authentic cooking. 3. The Eric Blair, vulgarly known as the George Orwell. A joint so horrendous that it could have served as a makeshift Room 101 during a rat drought at the Ministry of Love. The day police shoot dead a Brazilian electrician for peacefully eating linguine, we shall have: 4. The Sir Ian Blair, after the now ennobled former Met commissioner. For now, though, we are stuck with the trio. During lunch at La Luna, which copious internet research had established as one of Surrey’s finest, the limitations of the Which Blair Test became clear. Without quite being an Eric, this one is trapped in the desolate limbo between the other two. The studiedly tasteful, spirit-deadening colour scheme of browns and beiges bespeaks a wannabe Tony. Yet the over-familiarity of the staff and the electric organ muzak betray the subliminal urge to overdose the pepper pot on cruet Viagra and unleash its inner Lionel. The menu is equally confused. It darts so wildly about the regions and grabs so quixotically at passing trends that it ends up looking wretchedly ersatz. Cooking beef by the sous-vide method, for instance, is hardly the Italian way. “Hugely unprepossessing,” was my wife’s initial judgment as she reached for her shawl, “and freezing cold.” She took further umbrage at the flimsy strip of synthetic material running down the centre of the table, which she stuck to the table with chewing gum. Next to be vexed was a young Italian waiter with one of those exaggerated “scusi, scusi” brogues which suggest a lifetime spent within the charming Umbrian walled town of Surbiton. He was touchingly hurt when I winced over a Sicilian white, called Segreta Bianco, falsely advertised in the wine list as “Tropical, intense, full, aromatic.” “You canna detecta the pineapple?” he asked. “Or-a the mango?” All I could detect was retsina with perhaps the faintest hint of antifreeze, though the missus chipped in with a jaunty: “Oh yes, I’m getting the pineapple now.” “Just to be clear,” I asked when we were alone again, “you only said that to spite me?” “Of course.” Her impish sense of fun was swiftly paralysed by a salad of baby leaf spinach, beetroot and crispified roots. “Twee, tasteless, terrible,” she artfully alliterated. The aesthetic of my red wine risotto with radicchio and smoked chicken, which was an off-puttingly artificial shade of mauve, wasn’t rescued by the presence on top of a skin, while the flavour had the young Mike Tyson’s lightness of touch The chill at our table had now spread beyond the thermal, while my opening words for the defence “the website says that it’s 'widely acclaimed as the best restaurant in the Guildford area’, and the punters rave about it on TripAdvisor” – drew a sardonic stare. She had a point. So far as useful recommendations go, to borrow from Basil Fawlty, you might as well ask the cat. While the cat might have enjoyed my wife’s seafood casserole, she did not. It came in a broth that was watery and indistinct, as were chunks of a white fish that might have been identifiable under a microscope but easily defeated the taste buds. The squid was “like rings of old sponge”, and the mussels, though “sweet and delicious”, hadn’t been cleaned. My “English rose veal liver” was fine in itself, but ruined by a parsnip purée which drew an “oh, that’s disgusting” from the taster opposite. Even after sharing a passable affogato, the clear highlight remained a bowl of carrots. If they ever do get him to The Hague, I doubt this would make page one of the charge sheet, but I hold Tony Blair and the deal at Granita largely responsible for the vanishing of the Lionels. They were naff, smug and predictable, but they were warm, jolly and reliable with it, and you often had the compensation of seeing Des O’Connor on the wall, alongside the Krankies, Gordon Honeycombe and the old hoofer himself. When the alternative is stumbling into a world of ignorance, there is much to be said for sticking to what you understand. Tony, who invaded Iraq, never grasped this. Lionel, who has never given us his Lear, certainly does.