“As we settle into our seats with their fraying edges, and frail wooden armrests, we hear a commotion at the table behind us. Without proper warning a man suddenly falls backwards off his chair and rolls onto the floor. He’s ruddy and broken looking.”

The Docklands area is an unknown land for most of us; a mystery for those of us who don’t get to don a well-tailored suit and head off into its murky depths to worship at the slippery altar of high finance.

“It’s extremely rare that I find myself in Parson’s Green. I love London for all its multifarious gastronomic eccentricity; I love diving on a bus and eating Turkish feasts in Haringey, Indian food in Southall, but you’d have to work pretty hard to drag me down to Parson’s Green.”

I first read about The Connaught at an extremely impressionable age. I was too young –it left an indelible, immovable mark on my consciousness. I was fourteen years old, but I remember the sequence of events very clearly.

BRGR.Co. A strange, vowel-less beast that’s popped up on Wardour Street, part of the renaissance of Soho restaurants and the new breed of burger purveyors who’ve set up shop to make the most of London’s burning desire for re-imagined American junk-food.

“Chinese chef, Alvin Leung, is something of a legend in Asian gastronomic circles, an avant garde performer who stands alone in terms of creative vision and culinary style.”

We stroll up to the front of the hotel, searching for a likely entrance. There’s nothing. We enter the hotel through the revolving door and search the foyer. Still nothing. We find a doorman and discreetly make enquiries about a ‘Luggage Room’. “Ah” he says, sizing us up. “Outside, look for the small, black door to your right – you need to knock”.