There is quite a lot of Spanish food in London, unfortunately much of it faux-Spanish. You know the sort of thing: little bowls with grilled chorizo or fried potatoes, blanketed with a tasteless tomato sauce. A preview of El Faro’s menu promised something altogether more authentic.

But first we had to get to Turnberry Quay.

I brought the Hedgie with me. It was some time since he’d worked in the area, and as we gingerly stepped over discarded bankers, wrapped in the remains of what were once cashmere coats, he looked understandably shocked.

“Bloody people asking for money. We don’t have that in Mayfair.”

"Darling," I reminded him. "You do. They’re called hookers. And arms dealers.”

Fernando Gonzalez, along with Raul Gonzalez & Claude Goulet, owns the restaurant. He spoke passionately about his country’s food and his mother’s cooking, and I knew we were in for a treat.

We mentioned a few things we liked and left it up to Fernando to choose our lunch. Some rustic bread arrived, lightly rubbed with fresh tomato and fruity olive oil. It was served with Cinco Jotas Jabugo Ham, which he informed us was the best you could get. I almost didn’t get any due to Hedgie taking huge fistfuls and shoving them into his mouth. It was the best jamon I have had, dry and almost gamey.

There were little glasses of warm artichoke soup. And salted cod croquettes that knocked anything else by the same name sideways. They were crispy on the outside, melting inside and very comforting.

The bar had been raised, and so our next dish, rare tuna mixed with fino sherry and sesame seeds had to jump pretty high. It did - right into our mouths in a zingy burst of flavour. I would come here just for that. Hedgie had requested the black pudding, a dish I don’t normally eat. It came with little hats of sweet red pepper and looked fantastic. I liked it.

This was miles away from the reheated and dull tapas that pass for Spanish in so many places. We drank the house Rioja with our meal and very good it was too. For lovers of the wine, there is a brilliant list here including some serious vintages. El Faro deserves to be in the West End. Not because I think the West End is the place to be. But lots of people do, and cooking of this standard deserves an audience far greater than the few bankers left moping about Canary Wharf.

As we left, Hedgie spied someone he knew, a former CEO who was being berated by a large woman in a tracksuit.

“It’s because of you my kids don’t feel free to terrorise other kids on the street,” she said. The former CEO nodded sheepishly.

“Let’s go back to Mayfair," said Hedgie. "He’s making me feel dirty.”

“You already were.”

Here Is The Writer : Ms Robinson

Ms Robinson was once a copywriter who wrote award winning ads and had eight hour lunches. Weary of the sex, glamour and lavish parties, she switched to corporate communications where she held the hands of executives and banned them from writing this execrable sentence: "In this ever changing world, the only constant is change itself." These days she writes for an increasing variety of people and has ghostwritten several books but if she told you who for, she'd have to kill you. Click here to read her blog, Woman of Experience.

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