My magic Fortnum’s moment

I admit I had a falling out with Fortnum & Mason a few years ago over its new brasserie on Jermyn Street. It replaced a restaurant that looked like a toilet-roll cover or wedding dress, and although I had never eaten there, I felt protective of it. Why was she blown away and on what wind? Why can’t London resemble, always, something unseen in a Graham Greene novel, because I want it to? It was replaced by a smooth and very expensive restaurant for rich people, which looked like every other brasserie that has opened in London since 2000. I remember it had orange banquettes. It was too Mayfair — that means too Zurich, today — and not enough St James’s. I took against it because I couldn’t imagine a Victorian child standing outside it holding a lantern on Christmas Eve, its breath warm in the air; and if I could it certainly couldn’t afford to eat there.