20 Queen Street, W1; 020 7592 1222

Mon-Sat, lunch, midday-2.30pm, dinner, 6pm-10.30pm

5 stars: Glass A, 4 stars: Fillip glass, 3 stars: Glass half full, 2 stars: Glass half empty, 1 star: Bottom of the glass

Further heart-warming and whimsical tales of rustic happenstance and bucolic wisdom touched with a mere smidgen of mystical humour and an eccentric bawbee of regional colour. Trudging the heather and peat hag in pursuit of the stags, we would blather when the howling gale wasn’t too deafening or the horizontal rain didn’t make havering sound like gargling. There was me, the stalker, a pony boy, a pony and David Campbell, a publisher and wine merchant. With what fraternal comfort do those two callings fall upon each other? In the finest Scottish tradition of intellectual exhibitionism, he’s secreted a fine living wrapping worthy and indigestible classics in fine bindings for couth parties to display in their parlours.

As is usual with the easy company of Scotsmen confronted by the natural grandeur of their homeland, our outdoor chat turned to the Duke of Sutherland and his Titians. It may have escaped your attention that the new Duke of Sutherland is minded to sell a couple of baubles, a pair of Titians. They, along with a few other Renaissance paintings, have been on display in the National Gallery of Scotland for as long as anyone can remember. Now he wants to flog them because he’s reorganising his money, and has offered them to the nation for the discounted price of 50m of your Sassenach pounds — each. To be paid half now, half in four years, and he’ll even throw in a guarantee that the rest of the stuff can stay in the public eye for, oooh, at least another 21 years. Now these aren’t just any old daubings of fat naked birds surrounded by poncy blokes in fancy dress. They are the lead in our cultural roof: if they go, the philistine weather will rot the fabric of the nation and soak us, and we’ll have to put out more Damien Hirsts to catch the drips.

Given the current financial circumstances, the likelihood of the government coming up with a hundred million for a pair of histrionic fit birds is unlikely. Not while there’s a building society available for a mere couple of bil. So what to do about the Titians, I asked in the teeth of the wind. “Why don’t we stab him?” offered the stalker. No, he’s already dead. “Not the Eyetie gent,” he said softly. Stalkers say everything softly, with the merest hint of menace. “His Grace.” You mean His Grace the Duke of Sutherland, Marquess of Stafford, Earl Gower, Earl of Ellesmere, Viscount Trentham, Viscount Brackley and Baron Gower? Isn’t that a bit, well, gothic? And anyway, the Titians would simply pass to his heirs. “We’ll kill them, too, until we arrive at a duke that decides he doesn’t want Titians.”

It’s certainly a novel and enticing idea, and one that has the great benefit of being direct, simple, cheap and, above all, Scottish. But it would also be fundamentally wrong. They are, after all, his chattels to dispose of as he will. We had reached the top of a not inconsiderable hill, and the stalker sat and, apparently ignoring my point, looked around him and asked: “Do you see all the people in this glen and on that hillside?” No. There’s nobody here. There’s nobody for miles. “The folk who once lived here and places like here were also the chattels of a former Duke of Sutherland. He burnt the thatches above their heads and poured the milk onto their hearths. He cleared them from the land to bring in sheep. English sheep. And now even they’ve gone. There’s nothing here but some skinny deer, some fat ravens, a couple of out-of-breath southerners and me. That Duke of Sutherland was responsible for all of it, because he wanted to rearrange his money. So I think we can dirk this one for a couple of pictures. It’s not much of a recompense, but it’s a fine gesture.”

I’m sure this one is a perfectly charming hooray, I offer weedily. The stalker was silent for a moment and then said: “If you believe in the immutable rightness of heredity and the obligations of blood, as His Grace most certainly must, or he wouldn’t be the Duke of Sutherland, then you must also inherit the sins and responsibilities of your ancestors. You can’t just get the silver spoon without the steel of the dirk. Dukes of Sutherland are the most reviled and loathed men in Scotland; we have all inherited that. I tell you what, we should have his head stuffed and mounted and hung between the twa hinnies with the bare hurdies. There’d be a queue to the border to ken that. Duke with fruits of his labour.”

Murano is an island in the Venetian lagoon famous for its glass. Every time I go to Venice I think I really should buy some Murano glass, and every time I’m repelled by the hideousness of the objects that an Italian with big lungs can puff out of melted sand, and the price another Italian can ask for it. No crafty art is as replete with tasteless kitsch as the exuberant extempore multicoloured glass of Murano. Murano is also Angela Hartnett’s new restaurant in Mayfair, in a room that used to be a Chinese. It’s been remade simply, with a functional elegance, though there’s a couple of vases that rather spoil it. We took Marcelle D’Argy Smith and Gray Jolliffe, the cartoonist and creator of Wicked Willie. He said, in strictest confidence, that Americans were interested in turning his character into a film. “We love your Willie,” they enthused. “In the right hands it could be huge.”

Although this is Hartnett’s restaurant, the head chef is credited as being Diego Cardoso. Everything else on the menu is very good. We started with a pressed rabbit terrine with a merlot vinaigrette. This was the best bunny pâté I’ve had, encompassing all that’s finest in Thumper: subtle timing, a lovable softness, tenderness, a great sense of humour and jelly. But having none of his flaws: toughness, dryness and buck teeth. Gray ordered a vitello tonnato with pickled baby leeks and anchovy beignet. I had a risotto with parmesan and rocket pesto and roasted pine nuts. Impeccably made and unctuously simple. The principal ingredient of risotto is rice, and that’s what it should taste of. And this one did.

For main course, the Blonde had a turbot in ham stock, a classically unimprovable combination, which came with the clever addition of pearl barley. Marcelle had the rack of lamb, and I had a French pigeon with pickled beetroot. The star of pudding was an apricot soufflé. Sweet soufflés are not my favourite things; they were invented to use up leftover egg whites, show off the panache of the kitchen and get the public to pay extra for hot air. But this, again, was as good as any I’ve eaten, and it was at this point that the Blonde began to enthuse with exclamation marks and adjectival hand gestures. “It’s all very good,” she said. Yes, I agreed. It’s very good. “Very good!” said Gray, with his hands full. “Mine was lovely,” added Marcelle. “No, it’s properly, exceptionally good,” said the Blonde testily. “The service is perfect, the wine they chose was delicious, it’s marvellous value at £55 for three courses, and there’s a proper vegetarian menu, not just goat’s cheese. If we knew any proper vegetarians.” What do you think of the other customers, I asked. “I haven’t noticed the other customers. I was transported by my dinner,” she replied. Good, fine. I’ll write that, then. Murano — so good it makes people disappear and replaces them with lamb, just like the Duke of Sutherland.

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